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Stay Well
breaking health news & updates
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Sutter Health Settles Antitrust Class-Action Lawsuit for $228.5 Million | |
Sutter Health has agreed to pay $228.5 million to settle a long-running class-action lawsuit that accused the health care provider of abusing its market power to drive up prices for insurers, employers and individuals.
An agreement to resolve the case was reached in March, but details about the settlement figure were not made public until Friday, when both parties filed a motion for preliminary approval in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A judge must approve the motion for the agreement to move forward.
The lawsuit, Sidibe v. Sutter Health, was filed in 2012 and alleged Sutter violated antitrust laws by engaging in anti-competitive contracting practices that led to higher rates for health plans, which passed on the cost to consumers and employers that pay the bulk of health insurance premiums for employees.
The case was thought to have been resolved in 2022, when a jury sided with Sutter. But an appeals court reversed the decision and sent the case back to the lower court for a new trial. The settlement was reached right before the new trial was to begin.
If the motion is approved, an estimated 3 million entities will be eligible for payment from the settlement fund. They include individuals and employers who paid premiums for fully insured health plans from five insurers — Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California, Health Net, UnitedHealthcare and Aetna — between Jan. 1, 2011 to March 8, 2021. SF Chronicle Read more
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Blue Shield of California Shared 4.7M Members’ Private Health Data With Google
If you were a Blue Shield of California member in the past few years, you may have been targeted by online ads based on your private health information.
Blue Shield of California is notifying 4.7 million people — the majority of its 6 million members — about a data breach. The notice from the Oakland-based health insurance giant said a misconfiguration in Google Analytics led to the private health data of millions of members potentially being shared with Google Ads, and that Google may have used that information to conduct targeted ad campaigns.
Blue Shield had been using Google Analytics to track user behavior on its website “to improve the services we provide,” according to the breach notice. But the insurer discovered in February that between April 2021 and January 2024, Google Ads may have had access to tracked members’ information like family size, gender, ZIP code, plan type, medical claims, and service provider search results.
“Google may have used this data to conduct focused ad campaigns back to those individual members,” the breach notification read. “We want to reassure our members that no bad actor was involved.” SF Chronicle Read more
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League of Women Voters Eden Area Launches Underwear Challenge
The League of Women Voters Eden Area is accepting donations of new, adult underwear and socks. Community groups are asked to register and collect donations of new socks and underwear. All contributors are invited for ice cream while watching the exciting weigh-in on May 8th at 6:00 P.M. The weigh-in will be held at the ETHD office at 20400 Lake Chabot Blvd. in Castro Valley. For more information, contact Jo Loss at lwvea57@gmail.com.
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Paying a Visit to the Alameda County Food Bank
ETHD CEO Mark Friedman (left), Chief of Staff for Supervisor Nikki Bas, David Brown (center), and ETHD Chair Ed Hernandez (right) attended a donor and supporter event at the Alameda County Food Bank last week. It was well attended, which reflects the strong support the food bank continues to get for its vital work. With the current uncertainty and cuts from the federal government, food banks and CalFresh food stamp programs are in danger as more and more people depend upon their services.
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Kaiser Fined $819K For Slow Response to Member Complaints
Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente faces $819,500 in fines after state officials said the organization delayed handling complaints from health plan members. The California Department of Managed Health Care, which is responsible for overseeing health plans in the state, announced the fines April 25. “Complaints are an important health care right to ensure members receive the care they need,” DMHC Director Mary Watanabe said in a news release.
“Health plans are required by law to have a grievance and appeal system to resolve member complaints," she said, "Including providing timely notice of the plan’s decision in response to member complaints, in addition to providing information about how to appeal the plan’s decision. Actions like today’s fine keep the system working for patients.” The $819,500 in fines represents the total of enforcement actions involving 61 cases. Beckers Hospital Review Read more
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Bay Area Nonprofits are ‘Holding Their Breath’ Following National Americorps Cuts
Bay Area nonprofits have started planning for a potential future without AmeriCorps volunteers after the Department of Government Efficiency announced cuts to some of the national service organization’s staffing and programs last week. News about grants for next year is also delayed. While nonprofit directors say they have yet to feel the impacts of cuts to the national-level workforce, the elimination of one national AmeriCorps branch of service has sparked concern that others may follow, which would result in the cutting of staffing and services for nonprofits that rely on AmeriCorps volunteers to carry out their missions.
These volunteers, who receive a “modest living allowance,” according to the federal agency, do work that ranges from tutoring kids in reading and providing support for people navigating the justice system to responding to natural disasters and installing solar panels. There are currently 890 AmeriCorps California members working in the Bay Area, plus volunteers for federally funded programs. Mercury News Read more
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SF Inches Closer to Adopting Drug Policy with Abstinence as Its Primary Goal
Reeling from drug overdose deaths and scenes of people smoking fentanyl on sidewalks, San Francisco moved closer last week to adopting a “recovery first” drug policy that sets abstinence from illicit drugs as its primary goal, a proposal that has prompted heated debate in the city that pioneered harm reduction. Opponents of Supervisor Matt Dorsey's proposal say its emphasis on stopping drug use alienates those who are not ready to quit, while proponents say the city has been far too permissive and making drug use safer does not help break the cycle of addiction. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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Novavax Says Its COVID-19 Shot Is on Track for Full FDA Approval After Delay
Novavax's closely watched COVID-19 vaccine is on track for full approval after additional discussions with the FDA, the company said. The news sent company shares soaring more than 21% in morning trading and appeared to resolve concerns that Trump administration officials might be holding up a decision on the shot. Novavax makes the nation’s only traditional protein-based COVID-19 vaccine. It is still being sold under emergency use authorization — unlike mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna that have earned full FDA approval for certain age groups. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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Whooping Cough Cases Are Rising Again in the U.S.
Whooping cough cases are rising, and doctors are bracing for yet another tough year. There have been 8,485 cases reported in 2025, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s twice as many cases as this time last year, based on the CDC's final tally. Rates of whooping cough, or pertussis, soared last year, which experts said wasn’t unexpected. The number of cases fell during COVID-19 because of masking and social distancing. Plus, experts said, the illness peaks every two to five years. U.S News & World Report Read more
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HHS Announces Plans to Pay Moderna $176 Million for mRNA Flu Vaccine
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the government will invest $176 million in Moderna to expedite the creation of a pandemic influenza vaccine, according to a report from the Associated Press. This vaccine could be used to combat potential bird flu infections in humans, addressing increasing concerns about the spread of the virus among dairy cows nationwide.
Avian influenza A(H5N1), commonly known as bird flu, was detected in dairy cows earlier this year and has since spread to more than 135 herds across 12 states, the AP reported. To date, it has infected three people, all of whom experienced mild cases. Federal health officials are stressing that the risk to the general public remains low. U.S News & World Report Read more
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Fight or Flight? Some California Nonprofits Won’t Remain Silent in Face of Trump Budget Slashing
With the Trump administration slashing budgets and threatening to revoke tax-exempt status for nonprofits, some Southern California social justice organizations have gone into a defensive crouch, hoping to wait out the passing storm. They are not openly fighting President Trump’s program cuts. Some have scrubbed their websites of terms such as “equity,” “inclusion” and “transgender.” Others have been told they should drop land acknowledgments — proclamations paying tribute to the Indigenous peoples who were this region’s first human inhabitants.
But other local nonprofits intend to fight. They have slammed Trump’s policies. They declined suggestions to alter their mission statements. They have gone to court. And one, giant St. John’s Community Health — which has provided care for the region’s working class and immigrants for 60 years — is launching a campaign to call out congressional Republicans it believes are enabling Trump budget cuts that they believe will cripple healthcare for the poor. LA Times Read more
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HHS Clarifies: No New Autism Registry Will Be Created
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it will not create a new autism registry, reversing an earlier announcement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "We are not creating an autism registry. The real-world data platform will link existing datasets to support research into causes of autism and insights into improved treatment strategies," an NIH official told CBS News. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya previously announced plans to develop "national disease registries, including a new one for autism" as part of a larger research effort. His comments sparked backlash from advocacy groups and autism researchers, who raised concerns about patient privacy. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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Trump Administration Retreats From 100% Withholding on Social Security Clawbacks
The Social Security Administration is backing off a plan it announced in March to withhold 100% of many beneficiaries’ monthly payments to claw back money the government had allegedly overpaid them. Instead, the agency will default to withholding 50% of old-age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits, the agency said in an “emergency message” to staff dated April 25. The agency long made it a routine to halt benefits to recoup billions of dollars it sent recipients but later said they should not have received. A policy under the Joe Biden administration to provide relief to beneficiaries, who often live on the fringe of poverty, last year had capped the clawbacks at 10%. CA Healthline Read more
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Measles Surge in Southwest Is Now the Largest Single Outbreak Since 2000
The spread of measles in the Southwest now constitutes the largest single outbreak since the United States declared the disease eliminated in 2000, federal scientists told state officials in a meeting last week. The New York Times obtained a recording of the meeting. Until now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not publicly described the outbreak in such stark terms. NY Times Read more
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HHS, RFK Jr. Sued Again Over $11B Infectious Disease Grant Cuts as Measles Threat Rises
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are being sued again for eliminating $11 billion in grants for disease outbreak prevention programs, this time with a newfound surge in measles cases as the backdrop.
Labor union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFL-CIO); Harris County, Texas; and the cities of Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; and Kansas City, Missouri are asking the federal judge to vacate the COVID-19-related grant program eliminations and require HHS to follow federal law and its own regulations to continue administering the program permanently. Terminating these grants has led to layoffs at AFL-CIO and in public health departments across the country and has dealt a “massive blow” in preventing public health outbreaks from spreading, said the plaintiffs. Fierce Healthcare Read more
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Lucid Dreaming Isn't Sleep or Wakefulness—It’s a New State of Consciousness
The state known as lucid dreaming is an unquestionably surreal one, and it just got even more so. A team of researchers—led by Çağatay Demirel from the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging at Radboud University Medical Center, the Netherlands—has discovered that lucid dreaming has now been found to be a state of consciousness separate from both wakefulness and REM sleep (the state usually associated with dreams), and is in fact associated with its own unique type of brain activity. They published a study on their findings in the Journal of Neuroscience. Popular Mechanics Read more
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HHS, FDA Offer Timeline for Phasing Out Petroleum-Based Food Dyes
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have released further details of their plans to remove all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation's food supply. The agency will begin the process by revoking authorization for two synthetic food colorings (Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B) in the next several months. They will then work with industry to eliminate six additional synthetic dyes (FD&C Green No. 3; FD&C Red No. 40; FD&C Yellow No. 5; FD&C Yellow No. 6; FD&C Blue No. 1; and FD&C Blue No. 2) by the end of 2026, and food companies will be required to remove FD&C Red No. 3 sooner than the previously imposed 2027-2028 deadline. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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Virtual Singing Programs Boost Mood, Well-Being of Isolated Seniors
Singing can be a balm for the soul, but does it still soothe if a person is singing alone in a virtual crowd? Yes, says a pandemic-era study that tested whether seniors received any emotional or mental benefit from participating in a virtual choir during COVID-19 lockdowns. Isolated seniors said they felt less anxiety, better social connection, and an emotional and intellectual boost from participating in choir practice conducted over Zoom and Facebook Live, according to results published April 22 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
“Beyond the pandemic, the study suggests virtual singing could benefit individuals in rural areas, those with mobility limitations or those experiencing social anxiety,” lead researcher Dr. Borna Bonakdarpour, director of the Northwestern University Music and Medicine Program, said in a news release. “We found virtual group singing could provide emotional, cognitive and social support through accessible, engaging music programs for diverse aging populations,” he said. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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In A Reversal, The Trump Administration Restores Funding for Women's Health Study
The Trump administration is restoring financial support for a landmark study of women's health, an official said, reversing a defunding decision that shocked medical researchers. "These studies represent critical contributions to our better understanding of women's health," said a statement from Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. The decision was made because the National Institutes of Health, which funds the Women’s Health Initiative, or WHI, has "initially exceeded its internal targets for contract reductions," Nixon said. "We are now working to fully restore funding to these essential research efforts." NPR Read more
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West Oakland Hotel Will Become 125-Unit Homeless Shelter
Oakland announced it is opening a new homeless shelter and move-ins are already underway. The former Extended Stay America at 3650 Mandela Parkway has been acquired with a combination of state and local funds and transformed into a 105-unit shelter capable of housing 150 individuals and couples. Eventually, the building will be converted into 125 units of permanent supportive housing operated by the Housing Consortium of the East Bay, a nonprofit that operates several affordable housing and shelter facilities in Oakland and across the region. Residents of three large homeless encampments will be offered housing in the former hotel, according to the city. Oaklandside Read more
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S.F. Plan Would Spread Homeless Shelters to All Corners of the City. It’s Likely to Face Pushback
For years, Tenderloin and SoMa residents have complained that their neighborhoods have become a containment zone for San Francisco’s most vexing problems, arguing that there are unfairly saddled with the majority of the city’s homeless shelters and mental health facilities. To address those complaints, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood plans to introduce legislation that would require the city to approve at least one homeless shelter or behavioral health site in every district over the next eighteen months. The supervisor’s proposal also prohibits any new sites within 1,000 feet of an existing one, essentially creating a moratorium in certain parts of the Tenderloin and SoMa that are already oversaturated with these services. SF Chronicle Read more
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Mood Disorders Have Increased Among Kids, Teens
Depression and anxiety have been increasing steadily among children and teenagers in recent years, a new study says. More than 1 in 10 children (10.6%) suffered from anxiety in 2022, up from 7.1% in 2016, researchers reported April 21 in JAMA Pediatrics. During the same period, depression among children increased to 4.6% from 3.2%, results show. “Our findings underscore the critical need to prioritize youth mental health, which continued to worsen even as we emerged from the pandemic,” lead researcher Marie Heffernan, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a news release. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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Newsom Moves to Set Emergency Staffing Rules in Psychiatric Hospitals
Gov. Gavin Newsom is moving to impose minimum staffing requirements in California’s psychiatric hospitals in response to a Chronicle investigative series that spotlighted rampant abuse and neglect tied to understaffing in many of the locked facilities. By deploying the state’s emergency regulations process, the Newsom administration intends to establish nurse-to-patient ratios within these hospitals, which treat tens of thousands of people experiencing mental health crises every year, according to the California Health and Human Services Agency. The move would close a regulatory loophole detailed by the Chronicle that for decades has left psychiatric hospitals without mandated staffing minimums, despite a 1999 law requiring the state to set them. SF Chronicle Read more
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They Called for Urgent Help with a Mentally Ill Loved One. Why California Police Refused
In California and across the country there’s a growing push to minimize the role police play when someone is in the throes of a mental health crisis. Too often, those incidents can result in the person being injured by police — and a federal court ruling has inspired fresh police concerns about their liability. Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper recently responded with a dramatic policy change. His deputies won’t be responding to those calls unless a crime is in progress or the person in crisis has already committed a crime or placed someone else in imminent danger. CalMatters Read more
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Nearly Half of Teens Say Social Media is Bad for Youth Mental Health
The impact of social media on young people’s mental health and well-being is a growing topic of concern among parents, educators, health care professionals and regulators. And now, nearly half of US teens say social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age — and almost the same proportion say they’re cutting back on social media use.
That’s according to a Pew Research Center report that asked American teens and parents about their attitudes around social media and smartphones. It offers an updated glimpse into how teens view their own social media use, following a separate Pew study from December that found nearly half of US teens say they’re online almost constantly. The report comes as parents and regulators have called on social media companies to do more to keep young people safe — and prevent them from spending too much time — on their platforms. CNN Read more
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Opioids Tough to Prescribe for Legitimate Patients, Doctors Say
Patients who legitimately need opioid painkillers are finding it more difficult to get the meds they need, due to guardrails established in response to the U.S. opioid crisis, a new study says. Doctors who treat patients in severe pain said they frequently encounter obstacles when prescribing opioid painkillers, researchers reported in the journal NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery.
“The opioid crisis of overdose deaths remains omnipresent; however, a new threat has emerged among vulnerable populations who need these medicines as first-line treatment for their pain, which can be severe,” lead researcher Dr. Rebecca Rodin said in a news release. U.S. News & World Report Read more
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I Quit Ozempic and Embraced Feeling Healthy Over Striving for Thinness
In the summer of 2022, I decided to try taking Ozempic to lose weight. At the time, I was an early adopter. In the end, I was also an early quitter: I stopped taking the drug within months of starting it. Ozempic made me nauseated, gave me heartburn, disrupted my sleep. It wasn't worth it. I was not alone, it turns out, in finding it difficult to stick with the Ozempic and similar drugs. New research shows the vast majority of people who try GLP-1 agonists for weight loss end up stopping them. (Ozempic is approved to treat Type 2 diabetes but can be prescribed off-label for weight loss.) And while many people benefit from these medications, I think doctors can learn from the fact that so many people give up on them, too. NPR Read more
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Thousands of California Prisoners Falsely Tested Positive for Opioids. Did It Cost Them Their Freedom?
Thousands of inmates wrongly tested positive for opiate use inside California state prisons last year because of a laboratory mistake, and civil rights attorneys now worry many of them could be denied parole and a chance at freedom because of it. About 6,000 drug tests are believed to have generated false positive results in 2024, according to attorneys at UnCommon Law, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents inmates seeking parole. The organization confirmed the false test results through a series of public records requests, which showed positive test results suddenly spiked across California prisons between April and July last year. LA Times Read more
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What Science Says About Artificial Food Dyes Amid RFK Jr.’s Push to Ban Them
In some studies, synthetic food dyes used in the United States have been associated with hyperactivity and behavioral effects in children. In 2021, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in California published a review of seven food dyes such as red dye No. 3, red dye No. 40 and yellow dye No. 5. The review concluded that the consumption of food with added dyes is associated with hyperactivity, restlessness and other neurobehavioral problems in some children, though sensitivity can vary. Washington Post Read more
| | About Eden Health District | | |
The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Ed Hernandez, Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria, Sabrina Aranda, and Ronna Jojola Gonsalves. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policymakers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Rebekah Moan.
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