Public Health

Disneyland will close under state pressure to limit large gatherings. Gov. Gavin Newsom warned to expect more closures.

Government policy is one thing, real life another. What happens if your germ-carrying preschoolers suddenly pose a lethal threat to their elderly grandparents? What becomes of your teenagers’ future if their education is disrupted, long-term? How protected are we if schools cancel class but kids then disperse to malls and bounce houses and movie theaters?

Long wait begins as California counts votes. Coronavirus death leads to emergency declaration. California health officials defend needle-exchange program.

In a state with more patients and more in quarantine than any other, many questions remain unanswered as coronavirus develops in California.

Explanations include the state's comprehensive sex education, access to birth control, better contraception methods and even reality TV. Even so, the rates in some California counties remain very high.

As legislation to outlaw the sale of flavored-tobacco products flounders in the California Legislature, health advocates blame the influence the tobacco industry has with key state lawmakers. Vaping has skyrocketed among middle and high schoolers, many of whom are attracted by the sweet flavors. E-cigarette manufacturers such as Juul Labs in San Francisco say their products are intended only for adults and help them quit traditional cigarettes.

Failure to respond to California’s sexually transmitted disease crisis will have serious and direct health consequences for Californians, ranging from infertility and blindness at the individual level, to facilitating the development of multi-drug resistant and untreatable gonorrhea infections similar to cases already occurring outside the United States. If Californians don’t demand urgent action to stop this crisis in its tracks, we will doom the current generation of young adults to a legacy of ill health they did not deserve.

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disability in America and worldwide. Public health experts understand that it’s a short step from vaping to smoking. That’s why we must act before e-cigarettes hook the next generation to nicotine.

Kamala Harris is running. Also Infant mortality and premature births among African Americans in California, emissions rules, PG&E and LAUSD.

California has the nation's third-highest rate of congenital syphilis. That's "a failure of the public health system," said one expert.