Health

In 2005, California Connected visited the port and their neighbors to report on the causes, the effects and some of the possible solutions to the air pollution problem. Correspondent Bob Jimenez returns to the port to find out what has changed.

Go behind the scenes with Producer Angela Shelley, Associate Producer Anne Lilburn and Editor Michael Bloecher as they discuss the making of “The Lunch Lady,” California Connected’s story on Ann Cooper, a lunch lady who’s leading a revolution against typical school food.

Whole wheat pizza, organic foods, and salad bars don’t sound like typical school lunch options, but that’s what’s being served in one Bay Area school district.

Students at Balboa High School talk about the popular new “Grab ‘N Go” breakfast program.

With more children today over weight and less inclined to exercise, experts believe it’s not all about food. We sit with child obesity expert, Dr. Francine Kaufman, to discuss the future of children’s health.

If fewer and fewer emergency rooms are open to incoming patients, what kind of care can you expect when you call 911?

People think the organ transplant system is there for us all. But as waiting lists grow, some patients realize they need to be active in finding their organs…from a live donor, from the internet, even from China. However, many worry about the ethical implications.

We talk again with Commander Pennal about what’s changed on the frontlines of the war against California’s meth epidemic in this first person account.

As organics go mainstream there is a debate raging among organic farmers as to what it really means to be organic.

We sat down with Dr. John Swartzberg, head of the Wellness Letter Editorial Board, to find whether or not our bodies care if we eat organic.

We sat down with Dr. John Swartzberg, head of the Wellness Letter Editorial Board, to find whether or not our bodies care if we eat organic.

Since we left Ward 7-D, there has been progress to report.

According to a recent study, that water bottle costs about 2000 times more than what comes out of the faucet and, often times, isn’t any better for you. John Ridley comments on Americans’ $9 billion dollars-a-year obsession with plastic encased H2O in this Sideways.

At the Polytrauma Unit of the VA medical center in Palo Alto, we follow four soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury who are working to rehabilitate their bodies and their minds.

The New River is called North America’s most polluted river. It flows from Mexicali, Mexico all the way up to California’s Salton Sea.

Our producers discuss the story behind the story of “Troubled Waters.”

Some cancer patients face paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for drugs that may save their lives.

Assemblyman Keith Richman discusses the challenge of healthcare reform in California.

We continue our discussion with Assemblyman Keith Richman on the rising costs of healthcare, the increasing numbers of uninsured, support for low income subsidizing, and other issues concerning healthcare in California.

Californians have embraced many of these activities as their own, but which alternative sports are native to the state?

Firefighters call it the “Big Screen”: the front door to Los Angeles Fire Station #9, through which firemen have watched a human tragedy unfold for years. Station #9 sits in the middle of the country’s gravest homeless problem—Los Angeles’ skid row.

We spoke with Angela Alioto, who was appointed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to write the 10-year plan to take 3,000 chronic homeless people off the street.

Dr. Dana Goldman looks ahead to a time when a pill can add 15 years to your life and billions annually to the state’s health care expenditures.

Just how bad is California’s own version of the national health insurance crisis? We asked Dr. Mark Smith of the California HealthCare Foundation for his sobering yet not at all fatalistic prognosis.

Herrmann Spetzler, whose work focuses on alleviating the lack of health care services in rural communities, discusses both the depth of the problem and some surprising solutions.

The regulation of abortion is undeniably one of the most, if not the most, controversial political questions in contemporary America. Prop. 73 tackles just one facet of this political and, to many, moral debate: the role of parents and doctors in the reproductive rights of teenaged girls.

In the spirit of a popular detective series, we asked three intrepid voters to take a close look at the more perplexing details of propositions 78 and 79, aka, the discount prescription meds initiatives.

Californians are traveling in record numbers to Baja California, Mexico, for health care. The news is that they’re doing it through their own HMOs.

Filmmaker Cathee Weiss has a mother’s desire to share with her children the best of her own childhood experiences, like summer camp. But as the mother of two autistic children, realizing that dream is an exceptional challenge.

Nearly one million children in California are without health insurance. Each has a family and a story. This one is Alex’s.

In hospitals and doctors’ offices across the state, children are often asked to translate complex and sometimes embarrassing medical information to their parents or family members. Two siblings, ages 10 and 12, describe their experience interpreting for their mother.

Valley Fever, a potentially fatal respiratory disease spread by the airborne spores of a fungus, afflicts an estimated 100,000 Americans each year. A community group in Bakersfield wants to find a vaccine for this confounding ailment.

In November of 2004, Californians made history by approving $3 billion of funding for stem cell research. Today that research initiative has been stalled by lawsuits and criticisms. We interview the program’s leading proponent, and chairman of the new California stem cell agency oversight committee, Robert Klein.

It is estimated that as many as nine out of every ten minors in California’s detention system have a mental disorder. In the past, few have received the care they need. But an innovative program in Eureka could change all that by combining the efforts of the probation department, county mental health, and local schools.

Does it take a family or a village to raise a (troubled) child?

What do junk bonds have to do with junk food in inner-city communities?

The Legislature is considering a law that would make California the second state in the nation to allow doctors to prescribe fatal doses of medication to terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. Rob Nelson takes to the streets to debate the issue with fellow Californians.

Vegas-style gambling on tribal lands in California may be contributing to an overlooked health crisis: compulsive gambling.

Food security. That’s how academics describe access to healthy and affordable food, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Meet one non-profit group in San Francisco that’s turning to teenagers and talking fruit to tackle this problem head-on.

Will California retain the lead in the global race to create a Silicon Valley-like hub for the emerging biotech industry? With numbers like these…

Dr. Victoria Hale dares dream the impossible dream: making life-saving medicines affordable to people in the developing world. What’s more: she’s making that dream come true.

Prop. 71 commits $3 billion in state money to create the largest state-supported embryonic stem-cell research program in the nation.

The popular vote on SB-2 which would have required businesses of a certain size to provide health insurance to all employees.

An online discussion on the role of government in the pharmaceuticals market with Merrill Goozner and Jack Calfee.

An online discussion of America’s employer-subsidized health-care system with Tom Rice, Dr. Henry Aaron and Daniel J.B. Mitchell.

Why are so many mentally ill Californians treated merely with incarceration?

A 15 year-old with autism directs his own movie about being a teenager and having autism.

Two filmmakers team up with high school students to make a “real” drug prevention movie about crystal meth.

A shortage of nurses in the First World has prompted many doctors from the Third to immigrate for a pay raise and a professional downgrade.

An online discussion of California’s workers’ compensation system with Prof. John Burton, Prof. Les Boden, Prof. Peter Barth and Prof. Robert Reville.

Reforming California’s beleaguered workers’ compensation system by standardizing the evaluation of disabilities.

James Franklin, locksmith, hurt on the job and running out of money despite workers’ comp. benefits.

A remarkable 11-member panel discuss possible reforms for the state’s troubled workers’ comp system.

How the LA MTA curbed its workers’ comp. costs.

A lighthearted look at the complex issues surrounding workers’ compensation reform in California.

Scouring the earth for the next big drug, Dr. William Fenical turns to the mud at the bottom of the ocean.

Chuck Gardner and son Chas

Meet three fathers who have risen to the challenges of autism and the lasting legacy of their efforts.

What do you want out of California’s health care system? Take a few minutes to vote in our instant election.

After more than a decade of government television ads attacking the tobacco industry, two tobacco companies are hitting back.

Read an interactive copy of the RJ Reynolds and Lorillard tobacco companies’ lawsuit against the California Department of Health Services.

As the cost of staying alive increases for California’s aging residents, some seniors are crossing the border into Mexico to buy low-cost prescription drugs.

Do you know how to speak power? An unbiased look at the top five up-and-coming state senate and assembly bills on health care insurance.

From workers to employers, from doctors to an insurance company executive, take a journey through California’s vast and complex health care system, exploring both its flaws and and their potential solutions.

Why are thousands of Californians putting their own lives at risk by buying prescription medicine from illicit vendors? A look at the roots of this growing concern and what Los Angeles County is doing to prevent its spread.

A team of doctors arrives at a remote landing strip at the foot of a tall mountain range. Within hours, they will operate on nearly 80 patients. Afghanistan? Iraq? Africa? Try Northern California.

Ride along with Long Beach paramedics.

No longer limited to treating playground scrapes and bruises, school nurses are often the sole health care providers for thousands of children. But will budget cuts remove this frontline of public safety?

Should the state force persons with a mental illness to undergo involuntary outpatient treatment if their relatives or roommates believe that these persons are potential threats to themselves or others?

Too little too late? Lack of adequate early care for mentally ill patients pushes many into the criminal justice system, but is the current focus on involuntary treatment the answer?

A health clinic catering to adult film actors hopes to provide long-term health in a short-term business.

In the absence of ‘compassionate release’ for terminally ill, non-violent patients, prisoners tend to their own in their last days.

The State of California faces a budget deficit of over $23.6 billion. Should Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents, receive the brunt of these reductions?

Why is healthcare going under the state budget knife? Health officials warn of a looming crisis that will overwhelm an already teetering health care system.

Is rural California, the fastest-growing part of the state, headed for a healthcare crisis?

When a good doctor is really, really hard to find. California Connected follows a growing crisis in rural health care as the state legislature struggles to stop the exodus of medical professionals from remote areas.

Exploring the impact of Proposition 36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 (SACPA), an initiative aimed at rehabilitating rather than incarcerating non-violent drug possession offenders.

Emergency Rooms throughout California are closing doors and turning people away. When the ER is in crisis, where do people go?