Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Despite Safety Claims, Six Flags Shuts Down Thrill Ride Some Allege Caused Brain Injuries
The New York Times: X2, The Troubled California Six Flags Roller Coaster, Reaches Its End
The ride at Magic Mountain near Los Angeles has fueled lawsuits claiming that it had caused brain injuries, including two that were fatal. (Vigdor, 9/29)
In other health news from California —
CalMatters: CA Central Valley Medical Schools Are Years Away
California’s San Joaquin Valley needs more doctors. The roughly 250-mile region, stretching from Stockton to Bakersfield, has about 200 physicians per 10,000 residents, according to the California Healthcare Foundation. In the Bay Area, that ratio is more than twice as high. Medical schools are almost non-existent too — with not a single standalone program offering a doctorate of medicine, or M.D., in the entire region of 4.3 million people. (Echelman, 9/29)
ProPublica: California Regulators Did Little To Punish A Raw Milk Farm After Two Girls Got Sick
Sitting in a pediatric intensive care unit last year, watching a ventilator keep her 17-month-old daughter alive, Emily Marris scoured the contents of her phone for evidence to give to California health and food safety investigators. She had bought raw goat milk from a farm recommended to her in a Facebook group run by her chiropractor. Marris had hoped the milk, unprocessed and natural, would help with her daughter Brooklyn’s constipation. But doctors now suspected the unpasteurized milk, which hadn’t been heated to kill off pathogens, was the source of the toddler’s severe E. coli infection. (Waldman, 9/30)
San Francisco Chronicle: Hepatitis C Has A Cure. Getting It To Californians Remains A Challenge
Scientists figured out how to cure hepatitis C a decade ago, and at the time, public health authorities were enthusiastic about potentially ending an epidemic that is one of the leading causes of severe liver disease in California. But today, several hundred thousand Californians are still living with the chronic infection, which can lead to a need for a liver transplant and can cause premature death. The problem is access: to testing and to treatment. (Allday, 9/29)
More health news from across the U.S. —
The New York Times: Ohio Woman Sues Hospital After Wrong Leg Is Amputated
An Ohio woman filed a lawsuit accusing a hospital and her doctors of amputating the wrong leg during an operation last year. The 74-year-old woman is now a double amputee after the correct surgery was later performed at another facility. The woman, Sharon Jacks, of Meigs County, Ohio, said her original surgery was intended for her right leg. Instead, her left leg was amputated at Selby General Hospital in September 2025, according to the lawsuit, which was filed this month in Washington County Court in Marietta, Ohio, where the hospital is based. (Diaz, 9/29)
The Colorado Sun: Rural Colorado Communities Getting Healthcare Upgrades With $170M In Federal Grants
Rural communities across Colorado will train and retain healthcare workers, expand mobile healthcare clinics and adopt modern electronic health record systems — among other priorities — through nearly $170 million in federal grant funds aimed at improving access to care for rural residents. (Breunlin, 9/29)
The Beacon: New Moms Are Dying From Mental Health Conditions In Missouri
Missouri is working to increase maternal mental health screenings, but provider shortages and travel can keep moms from getting needed help. (Cunningham, 9/28)
North Carolina Health News: State Health Officials Back Mental Health First Aid Training At Colleges, Universities
When she was growing up in rural southeastern North Carolina, Alicia Freeman saw people whose mental health and substance use concerns went untreated because her area had very few resources to help them. Freeman, who’s been at UNC Chapel Hill since 2019, said watching her community members struggle is part of why she now works to help people cope with mental illness. (Crawford, 9/30)
The Hechinger Report: Texas Sends Students As Young As 6 To Harsh Disciplinary Campuses
The most notable thing about Melissa’s son’s 6th birthday should have been the vacation the family took. Instead, it was the letter waiting for them when they returned home. Her child was assigned to the disciplinary campus in their school district in McKinney, Texas, for 30 days, the April 2024 letter told them, over allegations that the kindergartner had assaulted a teacher about a week prior. (Butrymowicz, 9/29)
NPR: Foster Care Often Fails Kids With Disabilities. Consider These Cases
The woman who calls 911 says there's a diabetic teen boy in distress, but when police and paramedics arrive at the house in Mesa, Arizona she comes outside to say he's just "pretending that he's dead on the floor" because he wants attention. When those first responders go inside, they find something tragically different. (Shapiro, 9/30)
The New York Times: University Of Michigan Halts New Grading Plan After Backlash From Critics
The program was intended to address what the university called a “mental health crisis.” But the plan was met with criticism that it was coddling students. (Rubin, 9/29)
Modern Healthcare: Dartmouth Health Home-Based Care Initiative Receives $20M Gift
Dartmouth Health and Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine aim to create a new home-based care model with a $20 million gift. The two organizations said Tuesday they will launch Dartmouth Health at Home in January. The initiative will provide home-based primary and palliative care, create a family caregiver institute and develop best practices for in-home care. The initiative will provide health services to patients in parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, and could serve as a blueprint for other states, Lebanon, New Hampshire-based Dartmouth Health said. (Eastabrook, 9/29)
KFF Health News: These 100 Nursing Homes Face Perilous Flood Risk. Minnesota Shows What Can Happen
Floodwater seeped through the nursing home’s front door just before sunrise. Inside the New Richland Care Center, staff members rushed to move 36 residents out of the building on Sept. 19 while they still could. They pushed elderly residents in wheelchairs through 4-inch-deep water to buses waiting in the parking lot, said nursing home administrator Robert Johannsen. (Kelman, Hacker, Chang, McLister and Rantala, 9/30)
