Health and fitness

Source: California Attorney General's Office

March 21, 2025 (Oakland) - California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a consumer alert to customers of 23andMe, a genetic testing and information company. The California-based company has publicly reported that it is in financial distress and stated in securities filings that there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue, which is a growing concern. Due to the trove of sensitive consumer data 23andMe has amassed, Attorney General Bonta reminds Californians of their right to direct the deletion of their genetic data under the Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) and California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). Californians who want to invoke these rights can do so by going to 23andMe's website. 

March 19, 2025 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Kennedy gives food company CEOs an ultimatum (Politico)
• USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks (Politico)
• Bird flu-infected San Bernardino County dairy cows may have concerning new mutation (Los Angeles Times)
• As Texas measles outbreak grows, U.S. cases quickly surpass total for all of 2024 (NBC)
• Doctors didn't warn women of 'risky sex' drug urges (BBC)
• DOGE wants access to very personal information of Americans  (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally return home after more than nine months in space  (CNN)
• DOGE cuts could end decades of ground-breaking climate research in Hawaii (USA Today)
• This machine turns carbon dioxide into fuel (BBC)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

By Seraphina Eberhardt, Program Manager, Institute for Public Strategies East County

March 17, 2025 (San Diego) -- The U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory in January highlighting the cancer risks associated with even small amounts of alcohol consumption, noting that alcohol links to at least seven types of cancer. However, alcohol does not only increase the risk of cancer. Alcohol consumption has also been a topic of debate concerning its effects on heart health. Even minimal alcohol intake can elevate the risk of heart disease. For residents of East County, understanding these risks and taking proactive measures can help maintain heart health.

By Miriam Raftery

County News Service contributed to this report

March 12,2025 (San Diego) -- An autopsy has determined that actor Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The disease linked to exposure to rodents is rare, often fatal, and has been detected in nine rodents so far this year in San Diego County.

By Miriam Raftery

March 12, 2025 (El Cajon) – By a unanimous vote, El Cajon’s City Council yesterday voted to adopt an ordinance prohibiting the sale of vaping or e-cigarette devices disguised as other products. 

By Karen Pearlman 

Photo, left:  Aaron  J. Byzak, Interim CEO, Grossmont Healthcare District

Updated March 11, 2025 with comments from Christian Wallis.

March 10, 2025 (La Mesa) -- The Grossmont Healthcare District’s communications strategy consultant Aaron J. Byzak is adding a title, acting for a short time as the public agency’s interim CEO. 

At a GHD Board of Directors special meeting on Monday, March 10, the board voted 5-0 to appoint Byzak in the role effective immediately. 

Byzak, 47, will advise and help the board find the successor to its most recent CEO, Christian Wallis, whose contract was not renewed by the GHD board last week during a closed session on March 4. 

By Karen Pearlman

March 6, 2025 (La Mesa) -- The five-member Grossmont Healthcare District Board of Directors has decided not to renew the contract of CEO Christian Wallis.

Wallis, who was hired by the district in 2021 for a two-year contract at $215,000 per year, was given a two-year extension and a cost of living raise in 2023 to $247,424 annually. He succeeded Barry Jantz, who retired after 16 years of service.

GHD's board made the decision during its Tuesday morning board meeting on March 4 in closed session, after which the district’s legal counsel reported out with a public statement that the board voted 4-1 to not renew Wallis's contract.

GHD released a statement about Wallis's departure on Thursday evening, March 6:

March 4, 2025 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Trump administration firings hit key office handling bird flu response (Politico)
• As measles cases rise in the U.S., some adults may need a vaccine booster   (NPR)
•  FDA links deadly listeria outbreak to frozen nutritional shakes(KPBS)
• Emulsifiers Make Food More Appealing. Do They Also Make You Sick? (Wall St.Journal)
• To solve for doctor shortages, states ease licensing for foreign-trained physicians  (NPR)
• Exercise may help patients with colon cancer live as long as those who never had it, study suggests (CNN)
• RFK Jr. Just Kneecapped the CDC on His First Day (New Republic)
• It's like 'dead birds flying': How bird flu is spreading in the wild (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• Exclusive: FDA staff reviewing Musk’s Neuralink were included in DOGE employee firings, sources say (Reuters)
• Cryptocurrency exchange says it was victim of $1.5 billion hack (AP)
• Predatory app downloaded 100,000 times from Google Play Store steals data, uses it for blackmail (Malwarebytes)
• Plane that flipped over in Canada highlights some of the dangers of holding kids on your lap  (AP)
• Musk has inside track to take over contract to fix air traffic communications system (AP)
• Elon Musk's DOGE Website Being 'Hacked' Sparks Mockery (Newsweek)

For excerpts and links to full stories,click  “read more” and scroll down.

East County News Service

March 3, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Calling a measles outbreak now in nine states a “call to action,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has posted a message on the agency’s website titled “MMR vaccine is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease.” 

Kennedy, a noted skeptic of some vaccines, is now urging all Americans to get vaccinated for measles. The CDC recommends that adults born after 1957 who received the vaccine before 1968 should get a booster shot.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  164 measles cases have been reported in nine different states, including Alaska, California, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Texas.  In Texas, which has 146 cases since January, a child has died of measles and 20 patients have been hospitalized.