Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro’s medical team gathers around her on the day she received her gene-therapy stem-cell transplant. (Photo: Padilla-Vaccaro family, via UCLA Health)A London-based biotech firm has given up its life-saving treatment for the bubble baby disease and turned it over to California’s $12 billion stem cell agency and UCLA, where it was developed with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Illustration of a pregnant woman. (Image: Tanya Antusenok,via Shutterstock)Amid a pandemic that has pushed millions of mothers out of the workplace, caused fertility rates to plunge and heightened the risk of death for pregnant women, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are seeking a slate of health proposals for low-income families and children. Newsom, a self-described feminist and the father of four young children, has long advocated family-friendly health and economic policies.
Pharmacists check the inventory at a hospital pharmacy. (Photo: Jacob Lund, via Shutterstock)OPINION: When California began delivering millions of COVID-19 vaccines, we turned to neighborhood pharmacists to get shots in arms quickly and safely. These highly educated and trained medical professionals helped to protect our communities, making personal sacrifices to serve even though they already perform high-pressure jobs where mistakes may cost lives.
Illustration: Hydrocodone pills and prescription bottles. (Image: Andy Dean Photography, via Shutterstock.)OPINION: A record 3,200 Californians lost their lives to opioids in 2019 — well before the stress and disruption caused by COVID-19 caused overdose deaths to spike to new highs nationwide. By May 2020, powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl caused California’s 12-month all-drug overdose death rate to spike nearly 27%, significantly faster than the national average.
A man receives a COVID-19 vaccination from a nurse at a clinic set up in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Mission. (Photo: Ringo Chiu, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Many of the 55 elderly patients arrived for their second COVID-19 vaccines, leaning on their children’s arms or walkers. Most were Latinx or Black. All were age 75 or older, and they were eager to get vaccinated against the deadly virus.
Drugs arranged on shelves at a pharmacy. (Photo: SEE_JAY, via Shutterstock)OPINION: California can once again be a national leader in pushing for cost-savings reforms in the healthcare field by being the first in the nation to address the practice of rebate policies that can bring balance and competition back to the pharmaceutical marketplace, which will help drive down drug costs and improve patient care. This policy challenge is called a rebate wall.
A remote consultation involving upcoming dental surgery. (Photo: verbaska, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The pandemic has created plenty of insecurity, but one bright spot has been the integration of technology into our daily lives. Through video conferencing and other technologies, we have been able to keep meetings with coworkers and reduce the isolation of quarantine by providing a face-to-face connection with family and friends.
A dialysis nurse checks his equipment. (Photo: Saengsuriya Kanhajorn, via Shutterstock)Close your eyes. Think about all the problems facing California. Think about the top 10 problems. Now think about the top 100 problems. Now open your eyes. We doubt anyone reading this thought about staffing in kidney dialysis centers. Yet this year proposition 23 was asking voters in California to have a say on the staffing requirements for kidney dialysis centers.
A march for women's rights on San Francisco's Market Street. (Photo: Sundry Photography, via Shutterstock)It’s deeply concerning that a health care labor union in one of the most progressive, pro-choice states in the nation is pushing a ballot measure that could provide new ammunition to anti-abortion zealots in their quest to eliminate a woman’s right to choose.
A suspect in custody, handcuffed by police. (Photo: Boyfare, via Shutterstock)Police response to mental-health calls often ends – again and again – in chaotic, noisy hospital emergency rooms, where staff is stretched thin, and a heart attack is likely to take precedence over someone in the throes of a mental-health crisis. “Traditionally, people would be dropped off at the ER, and the only option was to transfer them to a psychiatric facility,” says Dr. Scott Zeller, a nationally known emergency psychiatrist and former president of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry.