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breaking health news & updates

June 5, 2024

California Announces Seizure Of More Than 5 Million Fentanyl Pills Since January, Experts Say More Needs To Be Done

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that 5.8 million fentanyl-laced pills were confiscated throughout California by the state’s Counterdrug Task Force in collaboration with local and federal law enforcement agencies.


As the state government celebrates consistently increasing confiscations of the synthetic opioid, though, experts say that the seizures will not affect the illicit drug market significantly.


Over the last three years, the number of fentanyl-laced pills confiscated statewide have increased dramatically. In 2021, only 1.5 million pills were seized statewide. That number jumped almost tenfold to 10.3 million pills seized in 2022. Again, that number more than doubled in 2023 to 22.2 million pills containing fentanyl collected throughout the state.


“Illegal fentanyl has no place in our neighborhoods,” Newsom said in a statement announcing the seizures. “California is tackling this problem head-on by holding drug traffickers accountable and increasing seizures, while at the same time expanding access to substance abuse treatment options and providing life-saving, affordable reversal medicine to Californians statewide.”

East Bay Times Read more

“We’ve never had an illicit drug this potent on the markets in this country.” 


Keith Humphreys, a Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction Researcher at Stanford University


Bird Flu Detected In San Francisco, First City In California To Report In Wastewater


Two chickens at a live bird market in San Francisco tested positive for H5N1 avian flu last month, authorities announced Monday.


The San Francisco Department of Public Health reported that state health officials discovered the infected, asymptomatic birds during a routine monitoring program conducted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The testing comes amid the current national bird flu outbreak.


“The most important thing to note is there is no threat to public health at this time,” said Dr. George Han, the Director of Communicable Disease Prevention & Control at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “There have been no human cases.”


Health officials said they closely monitored the market employees who had contact with the chickens. Over 10 days, none of the employees reported symptoms. No public exposure occurred, and the market has since reopened safely.


“Essentially, when there is an emerging virus we work in the background to do our due diligence so that if there is a potential threat to human health we are on top of it,” Han said. SF Chronicle Read more

Local News

Heat Dome Bringing Triple-Digit Temperatures To Bay Area; Heat Advisory Issued


Scorching heat is expected in parts of the Bay Area lasting into Thursday as a heat dome baking Mexico moves over the region before more moderate temperatures return toward the end of the week. The National Weather Service has issued a Heat Advisory for the Sonoma coastal range, North Bay interior mountains and valleys, and the East Bay hills and interior valleys in effect to midnight Thursday night. Daytime temperatures are expected to approach 100 degrees during the period. Farther inland, the Weather Service issued an Excessive Heat Warning for the San Joaquin Valley and lower Sierra Nevada foothills from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Thursday with dangerously hot conditions with high temperatures of 103 to 108 degrees expected.

CBS News Read more

Berkeley, Albany To Test Popular Bayside Parks For Evidence Of Uranium And DDT


Officials in Berkeley and Albany are moving forward with plans to test two popular bayside parks — César Chávez and the Albany Bulb — for evidence of radioactive material possibly dumped decades ago by the former Stauffer Chemical Co. plant in Richmond. Richmond has been dealing with radioactive material and other hazardous waste left by Stauffer for decades, but Berkeley and Albany officials were warned only this year that the company may have also discarded tons of industrial waste into landfills that have since been covered over and converted to the bayshore parks. The planned testing in both cities will include uranium, thorium and the banned pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), on the advice of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, according to reports from both cities. SF Chronicle

Read more

Get Your Free 2024 Mpox Vaccine, Say San Francisco Health Officials


Back in the summer and fall of 2022, an outbreak of the mpox virus— formerly known as monkeypox — hit the United States, particularly affecting gay and bisexual men, as well as trans and nonbinary people who have sex with men. After a mass vaccination effort led by organizers from the LGBTQ+ community and public health officials, the rate of mpox infections dropped sharply to very low numbers in California. But with San Francisco’s giant 2024 Pride celebrations a month away, the city’s health officials are once again reminding local communities to seek out the free mpox vaccine if they haven’t already — even though there hasn’t been another outbreak here so far. KQED Read more



COVID News

What To Make Of The New COVID Variants, FLiRT


As much as we would all love to ignore COVID, a new set of variants that scientists call “FLiRT” is here to remind us that the virus is still with us. The good news: as of last Friday, the CDC says that the amount of respiratory illness in the U.S. is low. The not-so-great news: the U.S. has often flirted with summer COVID waves because of travel and air-conditioned gatherings. Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, returned to All Things Considered to speak with host Ailsa Chang about what the new variants could bring. NPR Read more

COVID’s Aftereffects Can Last More Than Three Years, Study Finds


COVIDS’s aftereffects may reverberate for more than three years, often causing lingering pulmonary and gastrointestinal symptoms, according to a large study of US veterans. Although the risks for heart attack, blood clots, muscle weakness and a slew of other health problems abate over time, many patients remain in worse shape, especially those who’ve been hospitalized, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care system said. Bloomberg Read more

As COVID Precautions Vanish, People With Disabilities Struggle With Safety And Isolation


The pace of COVID fatalities in the U.S. has slowed significantly, with the nation’s death toll standing at more than 1 million people. With precautions like mandatory masking no longer in place, it can seem as if worries about the virus are gone as well. But for many people with disabilities, the threat is still very real. We hear from people in the disability community about their concerns. PBS Read more

End Of Pandemic Internet Subsidies Threatens A Health Care Lifeline For Rural America


Myrna Broncho realized just how necessary an internet connection can be after she broke her leg. In fall 2021, the 69-year-old climbed a ladder to the top of a shed in her pasture. The roof that protects her horses and cows needed to be fixed. So, drill in hand, she pushed down. That’s when she slipped. Broncho said her leg snapped between a pair of ladder rungs as she fell, “and my bone was sticking out, and the only thing was holding it was my sock.” Broncho arm-crawled back to her house to reach her phone. She hadn’t thought to take it with her because, she said, “I never really dealt with phones.” Broncho needed nine surgeries and rehabilitation that took months. Her hospital was more than two hours away in Salt Lake City and her home internet connection was vital for her to keep track of records and appointments, as well as communicate with her medical staff. During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers launched the Affordable Connectivity Program with the goal of connecting more people to their jobs, schools, and doctors. California Healthline Read more



State/National/International News

Cancer-Fighting Antibodies Inject Chemo Directly Into Tumor Cells, Upping Effectiveness


By attaching a chemotherapy drug to an antibody, doctors are able to deliver more potent cancer-fighting medicines directly into tumor cells, all while causing fewer side effects. The chemotherapy-antibody combinations, known as antibody drug conjugates, have been described as both heat-seeking missiles and Trojan horses for cancer cells, designed to specifically home in on a patient’s tumor cells and trick them into engulfing the antibodies, along with their deadly payload. NBC News Read more

Traumatic Brain Injury Strikes 1 In 8 Older Americans


Some 13% of older adults are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to a study by UC San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Health Care System. These injuries are typically caused by falls from ground level. Researchers followed about 9,200 Medicare enrollees, whose average age was 75 at the start of the study, and found that contrary to other studies of younger people, being female, white, healthier and wealthier was associated with higher risk of TBI. The study was published in JAMA Network Open on May 31, 2024. The researchers, led by first author Erica Kornblith, PhD, of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the San Francisco VA Health Care System, tracked TBI Medicare claims of participants enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study, a long-term study of a representative sample of older Americans. While TBI can be successfully treated, these injuries increase the likelihood of a number of serious conditions, including dementia, Parkinson’s disease and seizures, as well as cardiovascular disease and psychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety. UCSF Read more

NHS Patients In England To Be Offered Trials For World-First Cancer Vaccine


Thousands of patients in England are to be fast-tracked into groundbreaking trials of personalised cancer vaccines in a revolutionary world-first NHS “matchmaking” scheme to save lives. The gamechanging jabs, which aim to provide a permanent cure, are custom-built for each patient in just a few weeks. They are tailored to the individual’s tumours and work by telling their body to hunt and kill any cancer cells and prevent the disease from coming back. Under the new scheme, the first of its kind in the world, patients who meet the eligibility criteria and agree to have a blood test and sample of their cancer tissue analysed will gain immediate access to clinical trials for the new vaccines that experts say represent a new dawn of treatments for cancer. The Guardian Read more

New Study Points To Possible Link Between Tattoos And Lymphoma, But Experts Say Much More Research Is Needed


A Swedish study has found a potential link between tattoos and a type of cancer called malignant lymphoma, but it ultimately calls for more research on the topic, and cancer experts say the possible link is overblown. The researchers, from Lund University, said they wanted to do the study because so little is known about the long-term health effects of tattooing, despite its continuing popularity. In the US alone, nearly a third of people have at least one tattoo, a 2023 Pew Research Center survey found. The study, published in the most recent edition of the journal eClinicalMedicine, involved nearly 12,000 people in Sweden. From population registries, researchers identified everyone diagnosed with malignant lymphoma between 2007 and 2017 – nearly 3,000 people – and matched them with a group of the same age and gender mix who didn’t have cancer. CNN Read more

Are Pet Dogs And Cats The Weak Link In Bird Flu Surveillance?


When researchers talk about their biggest bird flu fears, one that typically comes up involves an animal — like a pig — becoming simultaneously infected with an avian and a human flu. This creature, now a viral mixing vessel, provides the medium for a superbug to develop — one that takes the killer genes from the bird flu and combines it with the human variety’s knack for easy infection. So far, domestic poultry and dairy cows have proved to be imperfect vessels. So too have the more than 48 other mammal species that have become infected by eating infected birds and then died. But researchers say there is one population of animal floating under the radar: Pets. The risk may be low, but the opportunities for transmission are abundant. LA Times Read more

Girls Are Getting Their First Periods Earlier. Here's What Parents Should Know


Girls in the U.S. are getting their first menstrual period about 6 months earlier on average than they did in the 1950s and ‘60s. And more girls are beginning menstruation before the age of 9, which

is considered a very early age. That’s according to a large new study published this week in the journal JAMA Network Open. “It's important to educate caregivers, parents and care providers

on this trend so that we can also prepare our children,” says Dr. Shruthi Mahalingaiah, the study’s co-author and an assistant professor of environmental, reproductive, and women’s health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. NPR Read more

Some Drugmakers To Cap Cost Of Asthma Inhalers At $35 A Month


The cost of inhalers recently fell for

many Americans, as new out-of-pocket price caps go into effect for the asthma medications from AstraZeneca and Boehringer Ingelheim. Following years of public outcry about the high cost of inhalers, the two drugmakers — along with a third, GlaxoSmithKline — have committed to capping the out-of-pocket cost at $35 a month. GSK’s cap is expected to take effect by Jan. 1. The moves mirror similar steps taken by insulin manufacturers last year following the passage of the 

Inflation Reduction Act. Like insulin, the cost of inhalers in the U.S. is significantly higher than in other wealthy countries. 

NBC News Read more

Homelessness

Contra Costa County’s Homeless Population Jumps 19% Despite Hundreds Of New Homeless Housing Beds


Contra Costa County’s homeless population jumped 19% from last year, even as local officials added hundreds of homeless housing units and shelter beds. The county’s latest annual “point-in-time” homeless count — conducted by a team of volunteers on a single morning this past January — identified 2,843 people, according to newly released data. Almost 70% were living outdoors, in vehicles or in other places not meant for habitation. The rest were in shelters. The surge came despite a 26% increase in the county’s supportive housing and shelter capacity to more than 3,500 beds, underscoring the challenge of moving people off the streets as fast as rising housing costs, job losses, and mental health and addiction issues force others out.

East Bay Times Read more

How Shots Instead Of Pills Could Change California’s Homeless Crisis


As Dr. Rishi Patel’s street medicine van bounces over dirt roads and empty fields in rural Kern County, he’s looking for a particular patient he knows is overdue for her shot. The woman, who has schizophrenia and has been living outside for five years, has several goals for herself: Start thinking more clearly, stop using meth and get an ID so she can visit her son in jail. Patel hopes the shot — a long-acting antipsychotic — will help her meet all of them. Patel, medical director of Akido Street Medicine, is one of many street doctors throughout California using these injections as an increasingly common tool to help combat the state’s intertwined homelessness and mental health crises. Typically administered into a patient’s shoulder muscle, the medication slowly releases into the bloodstream over time, providing relief from symptoms of psychosis for a month or longer. The shots replace a patient’s oral medication — no more taking a pill every day. For people who are homeless and routinely have their pills stolen, can’t make it to a pharmacy for a refill or simply forget to take them, the shots can mean the difference between staying on their medication, or not. CalMatters Read more



Mental Health

Stanford Study Reveals Staying Up Late Impacts Mental Health


A new Stanford Medicine study reveals that staying up late could impact a person's mental health.Researchers looked at the sleeping habits of nearly 75,000 people. The study found people who stay up late have higher rates of mental and behavioral disorders. Stanford researchers said they are still trying to figure out why sleep impacts mental health. But they suggest that everyone should go to sleep before 1 a.m. NBC Bay Area Read more

Older Men Die By Suicide At Steep Rates. Here’s How The VA Is Trying To Change That



It was a Friday morning and George McCune had roused himself to make the 2.4-mile trip from his Northridge home to the Veterans Affairs campus in North Hills. The 77-year-old was greeted there that March day by the usual crew training for the Golden Age Games: There was Roger, 82, who had piled up medals in javelin, discus and shot put. Bob, who had just gotten his cochlear implant. Becky, 71, bent on defeating her “nemesis” — a guy just six days her junior — in pingpong. McCune can be reclusive, he said. He has grappled with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, although he was never able to get formally diagnosed. Silent meditation is more of his usual speed than socializing. LA Times Read more

UC Davis Health To Open Region's First Trauma Recovery Center Offering Mental Health Services


Starting later this summer, UC Davis Health will establish a comprehensive trauma recovery center to ensure patients who are victims of crime have access to appropriate mental health services, marking a first-of-its-kind program in Sacramento. The center will begin offering services Aug 1, which include bedside patient engagement at UC Davis Medical Center for trauma-informed mental health services, and safety planning for victims of violent crime and their families, according to a May 30 news release. The UC Davis Trauma Recovery Center will also support patients in accessing longer-term mental health services as needed. UC Davis Health's CAARE Center — which stands for Child and Adolescent Abuse Resource and Evaluation — has been providing services at UC Davis Children's Hospital for years. The CAARE center will oversee the new trauma recovery center, and will collaborate with existing hospital-based violence prevention and intervention programs in offering services. Becker's Hospital Review Read more

Can Young Mental Health Navigators Ease The Crisis Facing Today's Students?


Young people are struggling with mental health, and for many, the challenges have worsened over the last decade. About one in three high schoolers report persistent feelings of hopelessness and an alarming number say they’ve had thoughts of suicide. Blame it on the pandemic, or climate change. Blame it on hyperpartisan politics, or the ubiquity of social media and smartphones. Regardless of the cause, today’s teenagers have made clear, in numerous surveys and anecdotes, that they need support. But across the country, there are too few mental health specialists to serve the growing number of adolescents who could benefit from their services. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that more than a third of the country lives in an area where there is a shortage of mental health professionals, with at least 6,000 additional practitioners needed. A cross section of leaders across government, philanthropy and the private sector believe that youth can be the solution to both challenges: They can simultaneously offer help and resources to their fellow Zoomers (as members of Gen Z are often called) while building skills that will draw them into — and will make them successful in — careers in behavioral health. EdSurge Read more



Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends

Drug Treatment That Insists On Abstinence? Federal Agencies Are Just Saying No


For as long as the federal government has worked to support substance use treatment, it has operated on a simple premise: Addiction medicine’s objective is to help people using drugs stop — completely and forever. But with over 100,000 Americans dying of drug overdose each year, the Biden administration appears to be changing its tack. In recent years, key federal agencies have quietly but significantly opened the door to addiction treatment that, while still oriented toward eliminating substance use altogether, acknowledges that total abstinence may not always be within reach. In public statements, official agency guidance, new regulations, and even in instructions to pharmaceutical companies about how to develop new addiction treatments, the federal government is increasingly making clear that, even if abstinence isn’t possible, it welcomes a secondary and often similarly meaningful endpoint: simply reducing use. STAT

Read more

About 1 In 3 Americans Have Lost Someone To A Drug Overdose, New Study Finds


About one in three Americans know someone who has died of a drug overdose, according to a new survey. More than 2,300 adults responded to the survey, which was conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published on Friday. Thirty-two percent of responders said someone they knew died of a fatal drug overdose. For 18.9% of respondents, the person they knew who died "was a family member or close friend." The past few years have seen more than 100,000 people die of drug overdoses annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 1 million people in the United States have died of drug overdoses since 1990. The majority of those deaths have been opioid-related, according to the CDC, particularly driven by synthetic opioids like fentanylCBS News Read more



Fast Facts

People Face Higher Risk of Kidney Stones During Summer Months


Warm weather brings days at the beach, sunscreen and ... kidney stones? Researchers say people who don't stay properly hydrated face a higher risk of these painful mineral deposits as temperatures and humidity rise in the summer. On top of that, they noted that in general people whose diet is packed with too much sodium, fat and sugar, could find themselves among the 

1 in 10 Americans who will get a kidney stone in their lifetimes. Kidney stones are formed when minerals from urine crystalize into a small stone or pebble-like mass. Summer is a key time to pay attention to these deposits, since there's a greater risk of kidney stones when temperatures rise and people don't stay hydrated, said Dr. Ivan E. Porter, a nephrologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. When it's hot and people sweat more but don't drink sufficient water or other fluids, those conditions "absolutely can relate to an increased risk of both stone events and stone formation," Porter said. USA Today Read more


About Eden Health District

The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other health issues. 
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.
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