NPR: LA Wildfires Bring Another Health Hazard: Smoke
On a normal day in LA, the air quality index, or AQI, might be 50 or 60. But near the wildfires, readings reached 400 or even above 500, "which is absolutely huge," says Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate and health scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. (Borunda, 1/8)

AP: It's Not Really The Right Time For Nasty California Fires. What Are The Factors That Changed That?
Southern California is experiencing its most devastating winter fires in more than four decades. Fires don’t usually blaze at this time of year, but specific ingredients have come together to defy the calendar in a fast and deadly manner. (Borenstein, 1/8)

Also —

The New York Times: Water Outage In Richmond, Va., Is Expected To Last Until Friday 
When officials in Richmond, Va., announced a citywide boil water advisory on Monday, residents buckled down for an unpleasant day or two. They are still buckled down. On Wednesday, officials said that people would most likely need to keep boiling their water until at least Friday, as a disruption that began with a brief power outage at the water plant amid a winter storm has led to a dayslong engineering challenge and a citywide relief operation. (Robertson, 1/8)

KFF Health News: Climate Change Threatens The Mental Well-Being Of Youths. Here’s How To Help Them Cope. 
We’ve all read the stories and seen the images: The life-threatening heat waves. The wildfires of unprecedented ferocity. The record-breaking storms washing away entire neighborhoods. The melting glaciers, the rising sea levels, the coastal flooding. As California wildfires stretch into the colder months and hurricane survivors sort through the ruins left by floodwaters, let’s talk about an underreported victim of climate change: the emotional well-being of young people. (Wolfson, 1/9)

Stat: Investors Call On UnitedHealth To Disclose Human And Economic Costs Of Policies That Limit Care
Seven UnitedHealth Group shareholders are calling on the health care conglomerate to produce a report on how often its policies lead to denied or delayed care, and the effects on patients and the economy. (Bannow, 1/8)

Newsweek: Doctor Says UnitedHealthcare Stopped Cancer Surgery To Ask If Necessary 
A doctor has shared a shocking story of how UnitedHealthcare stopped a cancer surgery to ask if it was medically necessary in a new Instagram video. Elisabeth Potter, a doctor based in Austin, Texas, created a video on Instagram detailing her experience treating a cancer patient and the roadblocks UnitedHealthcare put up during a surgery procedure. ... Potter said she was performing a bilateral DIEP flap surgery, which is a reconstruction surgery that takes place after a mastectomy when she was interrupted by a call from United Healthcare. The patient was already asleep on the operating table. "They demanded information about her diagnosis and inpatient stay justification," Potter said in a post on Instagram. "I had to scrub out mid-surgery to call United." (Blake, 1/8)

Boston.com: 3 UnitedHealthcare-Affiliated Insurers Ordered To Pay $165 Million For Misleading Consumers
Three insurance companies owned by UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, will have to pay a collective $165 million in damages to consumers and the state of Massachusetts, the the state attorney general’s office announced Monday. Believed to comprise the highest total of civil penalties in any action brought by the office under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, it will have to pay over $50 million in restitution to consumers and an additional $115 million in civil penalties. (Aitken, 1/7)

In related news —

Modern Healthcare: JP Morgan Increases Security For 2025 Conference Amid UnitedHealthcare Shooting, Other Attacks 
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is working to increase security at its healthcare conference next week in San Francisco, according to a source familiar with the planning. The 43rd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference kicks off Monday at the Westin St. Francis. The conference attracts thousands of attendees each year from the provider, insurance, digital health and pharmaceutical sectors, including top executives from hundreds of companies and health systems such as Mayo Clinic, Walgreens, Centene and Pfizer. (Hudson and Kacik, 1/8)

Stat: Biden Administration Allows Larger Incentives For People Who Reduce Meth Use
The Biden administration on Wednesday eliminated a major barrier for health providers seeking to offer contingency management, a form of addiction treatment increasingly used to help reduce the use of stimulants, particularly methamphetamine. (Facher, 1/8)

AP: Biden's Top Health Official Has Advice For RFK Jr. 
Thousands of people were dying from COVID-19 every day. Americans were still being ordered to stay-at-home or mask in public. Millions of people were eager to line up for jabs of the newly-released COVID-19 vaccines. That’s the scene the nation’s top health official, Xavier Becerra, wants Americans to remember as he readies to leave the office, possibly to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is a vehement critic of the vaccine that government officials — Becerra included — promoted to combat the deadly virus. (Seitz, 1/8)

AP: Biden Is A Great-Grandfather
With the new addition, President Joe Biden, 82, is believed to be the first sitting president to become a great-grandfather while in office. His granddaughter, Naomi Biden Neal, gave birth to her first child, a boy, with husband Peter Neal at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. (Superville and Long, 1/8)

The New York Times: National Day Of Mourning For Jimmy Carter: What It Means, And What’s Closed
A national day of mourning will be observed on Thursday for Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at 100 years old. The day of mourning will be held on the same day as Mr. Carter’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral. ... On Dec. 30, President Biden ordered that “all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed on Jan. 9,” except those necessary for “national security, defense, or other public need.” The Postal Service will suspend mail delivery and close post offices, but there will still be limited package delivery service, a spokesman said. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will also be closed, as will the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts. (Mather, 1/6)

On the Trump administration —

Modern Healthcare: ACA Subsidies Not Doomed Amid Incoming Trump Administration 
One of the big healthcare policy questions for 2025 is whether enhanced subsidies for health insurance exchange plans will survive Republican control of the federal government. After all, Donald Trump and a GOP-led Congress nearly repealed the Affordable Care Act of 2010 eight years ago during Trump's first term as president, and he continued to rail against "Obamacare" during his 2024 campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris. But it's not 2017 anymore. (McAuliff, 1/8)

Axios: Trump Could Derail Biden's Push To Police Medical Lab Tests
The Biden administration's contentious plan to increase federal regulation of diagnostic medical tests could be swiftly dialed back after President-elect Trump is sworn in. Lab-developed tests account for a global market worth more than $12 billion but haven't been subject to pre-market approvals or controls after they're made commercially available in the U.S. (Goldman, 1/9)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital-At-Home Programs In Limbo With Waiver Uncertainty
Uncertainty over the future of Medicare's hospital-at-home waiver is hampering some health systems' plans to launch or expand those programs. A waiver that reimburses health systems for hospital-level care at home was extended through March 31 under a short-term spending bill President Joe Biden signed last month. That is a drastic reduction from the five-year extension included in an earlier spending deal that was scrapped after President-elect Donald Trump opposed it. Congress could extend the waiver for five years or continue it for a shorter period of time in the next spending bill. (Eastabrook, 1/8)

On Capitol Hill —

The Hill: Senators Introduce Measure Making Daylight Saving Time Year-Round Standard
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reintroduced legislation to make daylight saving time year-round on Tuesday, touting bipartisan support for the measure. “I hear from Americans constantly that they are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year – it’s an unnecessary, decades-old practice that’s more of an annoyance to families than benefit to them,” Scott said in a statement. (Fields, 1/8)

The 19th: What A GOP-Controlled Congress Means For Trans People
For two years, as states pushed anti-trans laws, Republicans in Congress filed dozens upon dozens of bills that would restrict transgender rights on a national scale — but most of those bills never advanced. Now, as a new GOP-controlled Congress signals that anti-trans legislation is a top priority and President-elect Donald Trump takes office, a wave of federal anti-trans laws and executive orders is on the horizon. (Rummler, 1/8)

The Washington Post: Meta’s Fact-Checking Overhaul Widens Global Rift On Disinformation
While Meta said the plan would be rolled out “first” in the United States, spokesman Andy Stone said the company has no immediate plans to extend the policies to other regions, such as Europe, where social platforms have come under increased legal pressure to increase rather than diminish content moderation. The company declined to comment on whether or when it would apply changes globally. (Lima-Strong, 1/8)

The Washington Post: Meta Embraces Fact-Checking ‘Community Notes.’ X Users Say It Has Problems. 
Before the November election, Walt Wang said he spent 10 to 20 hours a week debunking falsehoods on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. As election-related lies and propaganda spread throughout the site, he carefully crafted responses, backed by reputable sources, to counter the false claims before they reached millions of users. But often, he said, his efforts felt “similar to a game of whack-a-mole.” He spent hours debunking one conspiracy theory, only to watch another crop up moments later. (Thadani and Oremus, 1/8)

The Guardian: Meta Is Ushering In A ‘World Without Facts’, Says Nobel Peace Prize Winner 
The Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa has said Meta’s decision to end factchecking on its platforms and remove restrictions on certain topics means “extremely dangerous times” lie ahead for journalism, democracy and social media users. The American-Filipino journalist said Mark Zuckerberg’s move to relax content moderation on the Facebook and Instagram platforms would lead to a “world without facts” and that was “a world that’s right for a dictator”. (Milmo, 1/8)

AP: No More Fact-Checking For Meta. How Will This Change Media — And The Pursuit Of Truth? 
Giving a misstatement the label of “pants on fire,” as some fact-checkers have, may be a catchy way of attracting attention but also fostered resentment. But Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, resists the view that fact-checkers have been biased in their work: “That attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.” (Bauder, 1/9)

Bloomberg: Massachusetts New Law Cracks Down On Private Equity In Healthcare 
Private equity investors in the health-care industry will face additional oversight in Massachusetts under a new law that Governor Maura Healey signed into law Wednesday. The legislation will subject private equity investors, real estate investment trusts and management service organizations to financial reporting requirements under the state’s Center for Health Information and Analysis and increases the fines for non-compliance. It will also broaden the authority of the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission and allow the regulator to seek testimony from financial sponsors at its annual cost trends hearing.  (Taylor, 1/8)

In legal news from Virginia, Florida, and Illinois —

The Washington Post: Virginia Hospital Indicted Over Unnecessary Surgeries On Women
A Virginia hospital is facing federal criminal charges over what prosecutors say was an extended scheme to profit from a high-billing doctor’s troubling practices, including dozens of medically unnecessary surgeries performed on unsuspecting women, which left some of them sterile. An indictment filed Wednesday in federal district court in Norfolk charges the hospital, Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, with health-care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The hospital collected about $18.5 million in reimbursements from private insurers, Medicare and Medicaid for questionable procedures performed between 2010 and 2019 by Javaid Perwaiz, prosecutors say. (Rizzo, 1/8)

Health News Florida: Tampa General Hospital Agrees To $6.8 Million Settlement In Data Breach Class Action 
Tampa General Hospital will pay $6.8 million to settle a class-action lawsuit arising from a May 2023 data breach that compromised the personal information of about 2.1 million people. According to the settlement, people who received written notification from Tampa General about the cyberattack may choose to submit claims to recover losses or receive a lump sum of $125. (Mayer, 1/8)

Chicago Tribune: Negligence Alleged In State Mental Health Center Suicide
A state social services agency that has been under fire on several fronts, most recently in an internal audit that found shortcomings in how the agency responded to complaints, is accused of negligence in a pair of lawsuits filed by the family of a man who died by suicide in a west suburban mental health center. (Olander and Gorner, 1/8)

Other news from California, North Carolina, Texas, and New Hampshire —

The New York Times: San Francisco Gets A New Mayor And An Emergency Plan For The Fentanyl Scourge 
Within minutes on Wednesday morning, San Francisco got a new mayor — and a new plan for an emergency declaration intended to combat the fentanyl scourge that has killed thousands of people in the city over the past five years and has turned some neighborhoods into sidewalk drug markets. Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, was sworn into office outside the gold-domed City Hall and began to detail his campaign promises about fighting the city’s drug crisis, which has claimed more lives in the city since 2020 than have Covid-19, car crashes and homicides combined. (Knight, 1/8)

North Carolina Health News: Addiction Treatment Programs Partner To Reduce Maternal Deaths
Overdose is a significant cause of maternal death in North Carolina, according to the state’s latest maternal mortality review. Among the 76 pregnancy-related deaths that occurred in North Carolina in 2018 and 2019, a little over one quarter — 20 deaths — were from overdoses. Nearly all of the deaths were related to opioids, with fentanyl involved in 14. (Crumpler, 1/9)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Medical Board Chief Tied To Planned Parenthood Retires
The medical director of the Texas Medical Board has retired, less than two weeks after conservative lawmakers publicized his employment with a Planned Parenthood laboratory. (Klibanoff, 1/8)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Has Yet To Opt In To $2B Summer Food Program For Kids 
Nearly 40 states have chosen to participate in a more than $2 billion grocery program that gives low-income families an extra $120 per child to help feed them during the summer break. But Texas, which has 3.8 million children eligible for the program, is not one of them. (Langford and Keemahill, 1/9)

New Hampshire Public Radio: NH Lawmakers Will Again Try To Expand School Meal Programs, As Food Insecurity Grows
There’s another push at the New Hampshire State House this year to make sure kids aren’t hungry while they’re learning — and it’s coming as advocates say families across the state are under extra strain due to inflation and rising cost of living expenses. (Richardson, 1/9)

CIDRAP: Fifteen More States Enroll With USDA Milk Testing Program 
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced that 15 more states have enrolled in its National Milk Testing Strategy (NMTS), which boosts the number of participating states to 28 and covers 65% of the nation's milk production. The USDA unveiled a national milk testing order on December 6, which began with 6 states and spelled out a broader strategy for testing milk in the wake of ongoing outbreaks on dairy farms. (Schnirring, 1/8)

CIDRAP: CIDRAP Report Highlights Gaps, Offers Guidance For Possible CWD Spillover Into People, Other Species 
The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota today published a comprehensive, state-of-the-art report aimed at improving surveillance, research, and response to a potential chronic wasting disease (CWD) spillover from cervids such as deer to people or farm animals. The report, "Chronic Wasting Disease Spillover Preparedness and Response: Charting an Uncertain Future," identifies gaps in spillover preparedness and offers recommendations to support public and animal health agencies' ability to recognize and respond to a species jump. (Van Beusekom, 1/8)

CIDRAP: FDA Requires Guillain-Barre Label Warnings For 2 RSV Vaccines 
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday that it has required and approved labeling changes for two respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines owing to the risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurologic disorder. The new labeling warnings apply to Pfizer's Abrysvo vaccine and GSK's Arexvy vaccine. (Schnirring, 1/8)

CIDRAP: CEPI Announces Award To Advance Needle-Free Vaccine Delivery Technology 
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI) today announced a $3.7 million award to Atlanta-based Micron Biomedical to continue the development of a small dissolvable "button" to deliver needle-free vaccines. In a statement, CEPI said the technology could help address critical vaccine access challenges. (Schnirring, 1/8)

Also —

Stat: New Scientific Names For HIV, Covid Virus Raise Hackles 
The change unfolded slowly, over the course of the last four years. But it largely escaped notice until December, when the U.S. National Library of Medicine said it would change names in its databases of genes and viruses to comply with the ICTV’s new monikers. Many new names sounded as if they’d been cooked up by a medieval monk. HIV-1 would henceforth be known as Lentivirus humimdef1. SARs-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid, would be known as Betacoronavirus pandemicum. Ebola was now Orthoebolavirus zairense. (Mast, 1/9)

Crain's Detroit Business: UM Health-Sparrow Nurses, Healthcare Workers Plan Strike 
The roughly 2,000 nurses and other healthcare workers at University of Michigan Health-Sparrow in mid-Michigan plan to strike the health system later this month. The members of the Professional Employee Council of Sparrow Hospital-Michigan Nurses Association notified the healthcare system that its workers will strike for five days starting at 7 a.m. Jan. 20 after failing to reach a labor contract despite five months of negotiating. (Walsh, 1/7)

More health care industry and pharmaceutical updates —

Modern Healthcare: Blue Shield Of California Is Latest Blues Plan To Restructure
Blue Shield of California is following in the footsteps of other Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers by reorganizing its corporate structure and rearranging its leadership team. The company created Ascendiun at the start of the year to serve as the nonprofit parent of its insurance arms, its clinical services division Altais and its healthcare startup studio Stellarus, Blue Shield of California announced in a news release Wednesday. (Tepper, 1/8)

Modern Healthcare: Molina, Innovive Health Take On High-Risk Medicaid Patients 
Molina Healthcare of Iowa is teaming up with Innovive Health to provide in-home healthcare services for Medicaid patients with serious medical and behavioral health issues. The partnership with Molina marks Innovive Health’s entry into the state. The company coordinates medical and behavioral health services with primary care providers and specialists. It also sends nurses, home health aides, physical therapists and occupational therapists into patients’ homes to provide supplemental care. (Eastabrook, 1/8)

Modern Healthcare: H1 Acquires Ribbon Health, Adds FDA's Stephen Hahn To Board
H1 has acquired fellow health data company Ribbon Health, kicking off what could be a flurry of merger and acquisition activity this year in the sector. H1 also named Dr. Stephen Hahn, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to its board of directors. (Perna, 1/8)

Modern Healthcare: Transcarent To Acquire Accolade For $621M
Transcarent is acquiring Accolade for approximately $621 million, the company said Wednesday. Transcarent, which connects self-insured employer customers to behavioral health, urgent care, cancer care, pharmacy and weight management services, is purchasing Accolade for $7.03 per share in cash. Accolade provides healthcare navigation and engagement tools to employers. (Perna, 1/8)

The Wall Street Journal: AMD Invests In Drug-Discovery Company Absci In Push To Sell AI Chips
Advanced Micro Devices is investing $20 million in Absci, a drug-discovery company based in Washington state, in a move aimed at selling its artificial intelligence chips in the healthcare sector. The deal is structured as a private investment in a public equity and includes an equity stake in Absci. AMD didn’t disclose the amount of its stake. (Lin, 1/8)

MedPage Today: Women's Disadvantage On Lung Transplant Waitlists May Be A More Global Problem 
Women are less likely than men to get a needed lung transplant and spend an average of 6 weeks longer waiting for one, but they do better with the transplant, a French study found. (Phend, 1/8)

ScienceDaily: Study Advances Possible Blood Test For Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease 
Six million Americans, most over the age of 65 and predominantly women, are currently estimated to have some form of Alzheimer's disease. (NYU Langone Health/NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 1/8)

ScienceDaily: Using AI To Predict The Outcome Of Aggressive Skin Cancers
Research demonstrates that AI can determine the course and severity of aggressive skin cancers, such as Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), to enhance clinical decision making by generating personalized predictions of treatment specific outcomes for patients and their doctors. (Newcastle University, 1/8)

CIDRAP: Study: COVID-19 Hospital Cases, Deaths In Nursing Homes Fell Sharply After Widespread Vaccination
A study today in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology of more than 44,000 COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County nursing homes reveals that hospitalizations and deaths per 100 residents fell from 31 and 24, respectively, prior to widespread vaccination to 11 and 7, respectively, afterward from March 2020 to April 2022. (Soucheray, 1/7)

CIDRAP: Early-Life Infection Burden Continues Throughout Childhood, New Data Reveal 
New data from researchers in Denmark suggest that children who have a lot of common infections early in life have higher risk of moderate to severe infections and antibiotic use throughout childhood. (Dall, 1/6)

MedPage Today: Gabapentin May Not Raise The Risk Of Falling After All 
New use of gabapentin (Neurontin) was not associated with greater risk of falls in older adults with neuropathy or fibromyalgia compared with new use of duloxetine (Cymbalta), a commercial claims analysis suggested. ... "Gabapentin has been labeled a 'bad' medication and has gotten a lot of negative press in the past couple of years," Alexander Chaitoff, MD, MPH, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told MedPage Today. "But all medications can be 'good' or 'bad' depending on whether they are given to the right person, for the right indication, at the right time, in the right form." (George, 1/6)

Bloomberg: Trump Must Keep The US In The World Health Organization
One truth traveled the world with Covid-19: When infectious diseases spread, no one is safe until everyone is safe. If no mechanism for international health cooperation existed, it would have to be created. (Gordon Brown, 1/9)

Stat: Doctors Need More Training On Eating Disorders
You are a health care provider — an emergency room doctor, a pediatric nurse practitioner, a physician assistant. You meet a young woman whose partner found her unresponsive after vomiting, an adolescent boy training for his school’s track team and not meeting growth targets, or a man prescribed a weight loss medication who now isolates himself due to strict food rules. (Deborah R. Glasofer and Evelyn Attia, 1/9)

The Boston Globe: A Trip To Urgent Care Almost Destroyed Me
My experience reflects the fragmented dysfunction of our health care system, where patients are thrown into several spinning wheels that rarely exchange information and coordinate care. The problem is especially bad with mental health, because therapists, psychologists, and pharmacists usually don’t confer with primary care doctors. (Thomas Lee, 1/8)

Stat: WHO Director-General Pays Tribute To Jimmy Carter
Outside the main entrance of World Health Organization’s headquarters in Geneva stands a bronze statue of an African boy walking ahead of his blinded father, guiding him with a long stick they both hold. This poignant artwork depicts how onchocerciasis, an ancient disease commonly known as river blindness, impacts many of the world’s poorest people. Several replicas have been installed around the world, including the Carter Center in Atlanta. (Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 1/8)

The New York Times: A Low-Tech Way To Save Babies' Lives
Research shows that breastfed babies are at a lower risk of illness, infectious disease, diabetes, asthma, obesity and sudden infant death syndrome. They also appear to have fewer behavioral problems and higher I.Q.s. Modeling suggests that a lack of optimal breastfeeding costs the global economy an estimated $341 billion per year. (Nicholas Kristof, 1/8)