Health
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
The Yuba River watershed spans four counties (Nevada, Placer, Sierra, and Yuba) and is located between Yuba City and the crest of the Sierra Nevada.
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, or OEHHA, developed the recommendations based on the levels of mercury found in fish caught from these waters.
“Many fish have nutrients that may reduce the risk of heart disease and are an excellent source of protein,” said Dr. Lauren Zeise, director of OEHHA. “By following our guidelines for fish caught at Yuba River and Deer Creek, people can safely eat fish low in chemical contaminants and enjoy the well-known health benefits of fish consumption.”
OEHHA’s fish eating advice is available in English and Spanish posters for three geographic areas of the Yuba River watershed: 1) the “mainstem” Yuba River (between New Bullards Bar Reservoir and Yuba City), North Yuba River, and Middle Yuba River; 2) the South Yuba River; and 3) Deer Creek, a Nevada County tributary of the Yuba River. Specific advice was previously developed for New Bullards Bar Reservoir and Englebright Lake, also located within the greater watershed.
OEHHA’s advice is based on elevated levels of mercury found in some fish species from the Yuba River watershed.
Human activities, such as burning coal and the historic use of mercury in gold mining, have added mercury into the environment.
Mercury is also naturally occurring in some rocks and soil. It accumulates in fish in the form of methylmercury, which can damage the brain and nervous system, especially in developing children and fetuses.
Because of this, OEHHA provides a separate set of recommendations specifically for children up to age 17, and women of childbearing age (18-45 years).
Eating fish in amounts slightly greater than the advisory’s recommendations is not likely to cause health problems if it is done occasionally, such as eating fish caught during an annual vacation.
For the mainstem Yuba River, North and Middle Yuba Rivers, women ages 18-45 and children ages 1 to 17 should not eat black bass species or Sacramento Pikeminnow. They may safely eat a maximum of two servings per week of Rainbow Trout, or one serving per week of Sacramento Sucker.
For the mainstem Yuba River, North and Middle Yuba Rivers, women ages 46 years and older and men ages 18 years and older may eat six servings per week of Rainbow Trout, or two servings per week of Sacramento Sucker, or one serving per week of black bass species or Sacramento Pikeminnow.
When consuming fish from the South Yuba River, women 18-45 years and children 1-17 years should not eat black bass species or Sacramento Sucker. They may eat three servings per week of Brown Trout, or two servings per week of Rainbow Trout.
Women 46 years and older and men age 18 years and older may eat seven servings per week of Brown Trout, or five servings per week of Rainbow Trout, or one serving per week of black bass species or Sacramento Sucker caught from the South Yuba River.
When consuming fish from Deer Creek, women ages 18-45 and children ages 1-17 may eat one serving per week of Brown Trout. Women 46 years and older and men age 18 years and older may eat three servings per week of Brown Trout.
One serving is an eight-ounce fish fillet, measured prior to cooking, which is roughly the size and thickness of your hand. Children should be given smaller servings. For small fish species, several individual fish may make up a single serving.
For fish species found in the Yuba River and Deer Creek that are not included in this advisory, OEHHA recommends following the statewide advisory for eating fish that migrate.
The Yuba River and Deer Creek advisory recommendations join more than 100 other OEHHA advisories that provide site-specific, health-based fish consumption advice for many of the places where people catch and eat fish in California, including lakes, rivers, bays, reservoirs, and the California coast.
The health advisory and eating advice for the Yuba River and Deer Creek – as well as eating guidelines for other fish species and California bodies of water – are available on OEHHA’s Fish Advisories webpage: http://www.oehha.ca.gov/fish/advisories . The Yuba River and Deer Creek posters are available in both English and Spanish.
OEHHA’s mission is to protect and enhance the health of Californians and our state’s environment through scientific evaluations that inform, support and guide regulatory and other actions.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
The new law will require the Department of Managed Health Care, or DMHC, to annually review complaints filed by providers who believe a health care service plan is engaging in an “unfair payment pattern.”
Said Aguiar-Curry, “When a health plan underpays or refuses to pay doctors, dentists, clinics and hospitals for their work, it raises the costs of the healthcare system overall. In small cities and towns like those in my Assembly district, health care providers cannot afford to float multi-billion-dollar, multinational corporations.”
Under existing law, the Department of Managed Health Care administers and evaluates health care laws and regulations according to the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975.
This set of laws was created to regulate California’s health care service plans, and declares that a willful violation of the act is a crime. DMHC is responsible for addressing provider complaints of payment abuses engaged in by health care service plans.
However, the department is only able to audit a health plan approximately every three years.
AB 2674 will deter health care service plans from purposefully underpaying providers in order to increase profits by increasing the opportunities for DMHC to discover dishonest business behavior.
If the department does identify a violation or a pattern of improper activity, the corrective action upon that finding will result in the provider being repaid for the amount they are owed with interest.
The bill will greatly enhance DMHC's discretion to determine if and when a health care service plan has engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the Knox-Keene Act. Health plans that profit from taking advantage of the system for corporate gains will become easier targets.
“If we’re going to meet our goal of health care for all, cutting unnecessary or wasteful costs out of the system is crucial,” said Aguiar-Curry. “Efforts like this are a critical step to affordability for those who have access to health care, but more importantly are absolutely essential to our state’s efforts to expand our system to make health care universally accessible. We must strip the system of cynical attempts to make money at the expense of those who struggle to provide a healthy life for themselves, their families, and their employees.”
Signing AB 2674 into law ensures that health plans will think twice before intentionally breaking the law.
Aguiar-Curry represents the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all of Lake and Napa Counties, parts of Colusa, Solano and Sonoma counties, and all of Yolo County except West Sacramento.
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- Written by: United States Department of Agriculture
HHS intends to build on successful 2017 and 2018 National Institute of Food and Agriculture, or NIFA, Rural Health and Safety Education projects that focus on opioid abuse.
“With the impact opioid misuse is having on rural America, we cannot build strong, prosperous communities without addressing this crisis,” said Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett. “USDA is committed to working hand-in-hand with rural leaders and fellow mission-driven organizations – including other members of the federal family – to be a strong partner in this battle.”
HHS’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is engaging with the Cooperative Extension System, or CES, to bring opioid prevention, treatment and recovery activities to rural America more efficiently.
CES is a federal, state and local partnership. It operates out of the nation’s land-grant universities, empowering communities of all sizes to address challenges they face, from nutrition and food safety to responding to emergencies.
SAMHSA is accepting applications for fiscal year 2018. Eligible applicants are existing NIFA Cooperative Extension grantees that focus on opioid issues affecting rural communities.
The grants HHS is offering through the Rural Opioid Technical Assistance (ROTA) program must be used to develop and implement robust collaborations with the CES system to improve the health and vitality of rural communities across the nation.
ROTA will help communities develop and disseminate training and technical assistance to address opioid use disorder.
There is $8,250,000 in available funding for the ROTA program. Proposed projects cannot exceed $550,000 in total costs (direct and indirect).
The application deadline is Sept. 20, 2018. Please see the SAMHSA funding opportunity announcement for details.
At the direction of President Trump, USDA has been keenly focused on addressing the opioid crisis in rural communities.
So far, the department has convened regional roundtables to hear firsthand accounts of the impact of the crisis and effective strategies for response in rural communities; launched an interactive webpage on opioid misuse in rural America, featuring resources for rural communities and individuals facing the crisis; and prioritized investments in two key grant programs to address the crisis in rural places.
For more information about these efforts, visit the USDA rural opioid misuse webpage at www.usda.gov/opioids .
NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education, and extension and promotes transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges.
NIFA’s integrated research, education and extension programs support the best and brightest scientists and extension personnel whose work results in user-inspired, groundbreaking discoveries that combat childhood obesity, improve and sustain rural economic growth, address water availability issues, increase food production, find new sources of energy, mitigate climate variability and ensure food safety.
To learn more about NIFA’s impact on agricultural science, visit www.nifa.usda.gov/impacts, sign up for email updates or follow us on Twitter @USDA_NIFA, #NIFAimpacts.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
The bill strengthens legislation last year that first established basic website postings and other requirements for these special districts that had sometimes fallen under the radar.
"As the chair of the Assembly Local Government Committee, one of my goals has been to ensure that health care districts are providing the essential health services they were created to deliver and to enable constituents to access information about them," stated Aguiar-Curry. "My Committee held an oversight hearing in 2017 that highlighted some areas where health care districts could be communicating better – especially using the internet – and we wrote a measure last year that put into action some very modest website requirements. AB 2019 advances our efforts to ensure the public can easily access information about these important public agencies."
Created near the end of World War II to address California's severe shortage of hospital beds, health care districts evolved over the years as they adapted to changing demographics and the delivery of health care services outside hospital settings.
More than one-third of California's 79 health care districts closed or sold their hospitals, moving away from their original purpose and towards services such as clinics, ambulances, preventive care, and health education.
Approximately one-fifth of health care districts no longer provide direct health care services, instead awarding grants as their sole activity.
“In a world of limited resources, the public has every right to know how their money is being spent. The vast majority of health care districts are providing valuable programs to address wellness and healthy lives from cradle to advanced age. But, we can always do better,” argued Aguiar-Curry. “Not only will transparency make funding opportunities more accessible to a larger health services community, but in the rare instances when money is not being used to its most productive purpose, the public will have the information to demand better performance.”
AB 2019 requires health care district websites to include information about the district's budget, current board members, public meetings, and specified audits and financial reports. The bill also requires health care districts to include additional components in their grant policies and to post these policies online.
The measure also requires health care districts to make available online any reviews by Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCO) – public agencies that provide an oversight function for health care districts – and to notify their LAFCO when filing for bankruptcy.
"At least 14 health care districts have filed for bankruptcy since 1994, and a small handful have filed more than once," Aguiar-Curry explained. "This requirement is designed to ensure appropriate oversight and accountability by local government agencies when a health care district initiates bankruptcy proceedings."
AB 2019 additionally requires health care districts that use the design-build procurement process when constructing housing to set aside at least 20% of the units for low income households, consistent with the state's affordable housing policies and goals.
"Last year, two of the state's health care districts gained a broader authority than any other local agency to use design-build – including the use of design-build for the construction of market-rate housing," Aguiar-Curry noted. "AB 2019 ensures that these districts, and any other health care districts that gain this authority in the future, must dedicate a reasonable percentage to affordable housing when exercising this relatively broad power."
The majority of AB 2019 becomes effective Jan. 1, 2019, with a delayed implementation date of January 1, 2020, for some of the grant policy requirements in order to allow health care districts adequate time to revise their policies.
Aguiar-Curry represents the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all of Lake and Napa Counties, parts of Colusa, Solano and Sonoma counties, and all of Yolo County except West Sacramento.
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