• Merih Fssha Solomon, 47, of Walnut Creek was arrested in connection with the crash that killed a two-year-old and injured her mother in SF’s Mission Bay earlier this month. Solomon was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, red light violation, and failure to yield to pedestrians. [NBC Bay Area]
• The family of Sean Monterrosa of San Francisco received a multi-million dollar settlement from the city of Vallejo over the killing of  Monterrosa by a police officer in 2020, who said he mistook the hammer in Monterrosa’s pocket for a gun. [KRON4]
• The San Francisco Zoo announced it’s eliminating a “small number of positions” amid financial challenges following a scandalous 2024 report that revealed leadership struggles and concerns surrounding animal welfare and employee safety. [Chronicle]

National:

• Thousands were told to evacuate immediately and hundreds were rescued amid severe flash-flooding on Hawaii’s Oahu Island, as a local dam is on the verge of collapsing. [CNN]
• The FDA announced the recall of almost 90,000 bottles of children's liquid ibuprofen made by Strides Pharma for Taro Pharmaceuticals, with the product number D-0390-2026, after the company received complaints they contained "a gel-like mass and black particles." [Associated Press]
• CBS News is shutting down its radio division in May after 100 years in business, and all jobs in the department will be eliminated. [CBS]

Video of the Day:

As thousands prepare to descend upon Union Square for Tulip Day Saturday — early, we suggest, check out this cool video of crews setting up the spectacular installation this week.

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Two former San Ramon Valley High students reached a $7 million settlement after reporting sexual abuse by former theater teacher Ryan Weible between 2010 and 2012. Despite complaints and a police investigation finding condoms in his classroom, the district delayed action, firing him in 2012 but agreeing not to share negative information. [Bay Area News Group]
• Dead & Company’s second night in Golden Gate Park brought out 60,000 fans, many in tie-dye and vintage tour shirts. The band played deep cuts like “St. Stephen” and “Crazy Fingers,” with drummer Jay Lane joining Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann on a triple-drum finale. [Chronicle]

• UCSF oncologist Dr. Vinay Prasad resigned weeks into his new FDA advisory role after far-right activists resurfaced years-old liberal tweets criticizing Trump and conservative pundits. [Bay Area News Group]
• A driver was rescued and hospitalized Friday night after crashing 100 feet down a creek off Monticello Road in Napa, prompting a rope rescue by Cal Fire and county crews. [KPIX]
• A wanted man was arrested after allegedly stealing $1,500 in merchandise—including 21 bottles of probiotics—from South Bay pharmacies, then fleeing on a bike with multiple bags before deputies found the goods and fentanyl pipes. [KRON4]

Top image: An aerial view of an SF MUNI 5 Fulton bus that is wrapped in tie-dye colors on July 29, 2025 in San Francisco, California.  (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

You may have seen a prominent ad that aired during the Super Bowl Sunday for the weight-loss meds known as semaglutides that can be ordered inexpensively as non-FDA-approved compounds through SF-based Hims & Hers. Well, a pair of US senators are now crying foul.

The 60-second ad spot can be seen below, and it begins with a series of stats about obesity — it affects 74% of Americans, it leads to 500,000 deaths each year, etc.

"The system wasn't built to help us," the voice-over says, suggesting that the regulated healthcare system, where FDA-approved drugs like Ozempic can be hard and expensive to get, needs to be subverted. Childish Gambino’s Grammy-winning 2018 song "This Is America" plays underneath.

The ad calls Hims & Hers' semaglutide compounds "doctor trusted," and absent from the commercial is the usual barrage of possible side effects that you hear on ads from Big Pharma companies, which are required by law for TV ads for prescription drugs.

A small disclaimer appears, in tiny font, at the end of the ad that concludes with, "See website for details and important safety information." There is also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it, similarly tiny disclaimer in the middle of the ad that says, "Compounded drug products are not FDA approved. The FDA does not evaluate compounded drug products for safety, effectiveness, or quality."

The ad's release on Friday prompted Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) to write a letter to Sarah Brenner, the acting head of the FDA, noting that the ad lacked the proper disclaimers, and it "risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information when promoting a specific type of weight loss medication."

"We recognize the important roles that pharmaceutical compounding and telehealth play in the health care delivery system, helping to ensure access to FDA-approved products and filing a need for more customized treatments," the letter says. "However, we believe there should be no disparity in pharmaceutical advertising requirements between regulated entities."

Durbin adds, in the letter and in a post on X, "We will soon introduce legislation to close loopholes in the law for deceptive pharma drug ads."

Hims & Hers, as we learned last month, made a $1 million contribution to President Trump's inauguration fund, and sent an envoy to the festivities who was photographed with Health & Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (The contribution spurred some controversy around a doughnut shop and cafe in West Portal that was recently opened by Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum and his wife.)

The company is certainly hoping that the current administration will kind to the telehealth industry, and they are hoping to continue their upward trajectory among their competitors, particularly around the sales of semaglutides.

Regarding the ad and the senators' complaints, as the Chronicle reports, Hims & Hers has issued a statement saying, "We are complying with existing law and are happy to continue working with Congress and the new [Trump] Administration to fix the broken health system and ensure that patients have choices for quality, safe, and affordable healthcare."

Hims & Hers is not the only company currently promoting the sale of non-FDA-approved compounded semaglutides for weight loss. The popular weight loss app Noom is similarly doing this as of late last year — but, as Hims & Hers details in a blog post, they go the extra mile in prescribing both oral weight-loss meds and anti-nausea meds, as well as injectable GLP-1s, and their prices are lower than Noom's.

In a new ad campaign to promote Jigsaw, the Saw sequel nobody saw (sorry not sorry) coming, Lionsgate threw its money and weight into highlighting a longstanding issue with healthcare. In addition to advocating for blood donations (because they're a horror movie, duh), they also aim to highlight how people in the LGBTQ community have been barred from donating blood, even in times of crisis.

Adweek first reported on the ad campaign — titled "All Types Welcome" — which sets prominent LGBTQ stars front and center. According to Adweek, these include model Shaun Ross and socialite Amanda Lepore. Ross, who made news as the first professional black model who has albinism, and Lepore, who identifies as trans, are both blocked from donating blood due to the FDA's currently horrendously outdated regulations. Lepore commented on the regulations to the New York Times, saying, "It's exclusion, and it's ridiculous, and it's discriminatory."

Currently, the regulations say that men who have sex with men must "[defer] for 12 months from the most recent sexual contact, a man who has had sex with another man during the past 12 months." In other words, if you want to be eligible to donate blood, they ask that you not have sex with another man for 12 months — kind of a wildly unreasonable ask, surely, though it's an itty, bitty, tiny step up from the lifetime deferral that you'd get saddled with before.

Trans patients were previously forced to list their gender identity as the gender they were assigned at birth. Recent updates to the policy have change that, but things are still a little more complicated if you happen to identify as someone who lives outside of the gender binary (i.e., non-binary, gender non-conforming, etc.). In that case, you still have to list a "male" or "female" gender.

Lionsgate's ad could very well come off as a bit crass and perhaps a hard attention grab, but truth be told, it feels a bit like a genuine attempt at informing people about this policy that has remained uncontested by general public opinion for quite some time now. Back in 2016, CNN said that the FDA put out a call for public comment on how they should proceed with updating their policies, but there's still so, so much work to do. That's what this ad campaign seems to be trying to get across, and if it plugs a movie at the same time, then that seems fine, too, I think. It's also worth noting that as part of the campaign, if you donate blood at one of their "Mobile Jigsaw Blood Drive" sites, you get a free ticket to see Jigsaw.

To see all the posters involved in the campaign, head on over to Lionsgate Publicity's website for Jigsaw.

Related: Blood Drive For Gay Men Aims To End Decades-Long Gay Blood Stigma

Meal replacement sludge company Soylent prides itself on the artificiality of its ingredients — no milk products or perishable components to worry about while you free yourself from the tyranny of actual food. That's why Soylent, which has struggled to gain confidence from consumers after reports last year that some were sickened by its products, is issuing a voluntary recall of its Soylent 1.8 powder over the potential presence of milk, which is not listed as an ingredient in Soylent. According to the FDA announcement, no illnesses have been reported in connection with the problem.

"This voluntary recall is immediately being initiated after it was discovered that the milk-containing product was handled adjacent to the production lines for Soylent 1.8 powder," the company writes. "Subsequent investigation indicated that the potential cross-contact was caused by a temporary breakdown in our 3rd party manufacturer’s production and packaging processes."

In addition to upsetting the stomachs of lactose intolerant customers, the presence of undeclared milk product in Soylent could also upset the sensibilities of vegan consumers.

In October 2016, some Soylent customers posted horror stories detailing the diarrhetic effects of their Soylent bars. After suspending sales of the bars, which also reportedly caused extreme nausea and vomiting, Soylent blamed its algal flour supplier. At around the same time, the company also recalled its central powder product after similar reports. The flour supplier, in turn, denied its product, made from lab-grown algae, was to blame.

As Soylent consumers on their dedicated Reddit page have been through the ringer before, this time, many expressed confidence in the fact that the company issued the current recall. "Mixed feelings about this," writes one user. "Doesn't look good on their manufacturing quality. But at least they didn't try to hide a mistake."

Related: Soylent Says Algae To Blame For Customers' Extreme Vomiting, Diarrhea

In 2013, 23andMe founder Ann Wojcicki received a warning letter from the FDA asking her popular company to halt services that told customers they were at genetic risk of disease. "You are marketing the 23andMe Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service without marketing clearance or approval in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act," that document read. "23andMe must immediately discontinue marketing the PGS until such time as it receives FDA marketing authorization for the device."

That time is now, as the FDA announced today, making 23andMe the first direct-to-consumer test — no doctor required — that provides information on genetic predisposition to medical diseases or conditions. While 23andMe worked to gain FDA approval, it marketed itself as an ancestry testing service. But now the company, named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body and funded by Google/Alphabet, will notify users who spit into their test kits and send them back if they are genetically predisposed to Parkinson's disease, late-onset Alzheimer's disease, celiac disease, and 7 other conditions or diseases.

“This is an important moment for people who want to know their genetic health risks and be more proactive about their health,” 23andMe CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki said in a statement shared with the Business Times. “The FDA has embraced innovation and has empowered individuals by authorizing direct access to this information. It is a significant step forward for 23andMe and for the adoption of personal genetics.”

23andMe began offering tests for a genetic condition called Bloom Syndrome in 2015 with FDA approval, a step toward the approval the company's device enjoys today. Going forward, the Verge writes, the FDA won't need to perform additional reviews for every new genetic health risk report 23andMe would like to add to its service. That decision also paves the way for more genetic testing kits along the lines of those created by 23andMe: They too will likely proceed through a one-time test and iterate without need of more approval

“Consumers can now have direct access to certain genetic risk information,” Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a press release. “But it is important that people understand that genetic risk is just one piece of the bigger puzzle, it does not mean they will or won’t ultimately develop a disease.”

Related: Theranos Offers More Shares To Investors Who Pinky Swear Not To Sue

Until the FDA decides that Fong Kee Tofu Co. Inc. has firmed up its operations to sell clean and sanitary food, the company's owners have agreed to cease production at their San Francisco factory. A lawsuit alleges that unsanitary conditions were leading to adulterated products at the plant, which produces firm and soft tofus, fried tofu balls, soybean cakes, and soybean drinks.

CBS 5 reports that owners Yan Hui Fong, Jen Ying Fong, and Suny Fong agreed to halt production in a consent decree filed in federal court Tuesday. The settlement comes as a response to a civil lawsuit filed against Fong Kee Tofu Co. Inc. in January by the U.S. Justice Department at the FDA's request.

The unsavory details alleged in the suit are that FDA inspectors observed pigeons atop plastic-wrapped raw soybean pallets and insects in an area used to process firm tofu. The suit also alleges that inspectors observed a lack of correct hand washing on the part of employees and noticed residue on equipment that should have been cleaned.

Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General Joyce Branda said in a statement that, “Fong Kee Tofu was repeatedly informed that the sanitation practices at its facility were deficient... The failure to make sure that its facility was operating under sanitary conditions could be a serious risk to the public health and needed to be remedied."

In order to resume operations at the facility, an outside sanitation expert must be hired along with a labeling expert and an auditor to develop and monitor a food safety program. That needn't necessarily be three people, as one expert could have all three qualifications. Under the injunction, though, the FDA would subject Fong Kee Tofu Co. Inc. to inspections without notice.

Cheesehounds will recall the debacle of 2005 when the FDA ruled that Americans could no longer consume raw-milk cheeses aged for less than 60 days, causing chaos in the French cheese industry where they scrambled to make pasteurized versions of their soft cheeses for the American market. Now there's a new panic sweeping the cheese world as a pre-existing guideline from the FDA is suddenly being enforced, potentially forcing artisan cheese makers to stop doing something cheese-makers have done for centuries, which is aging wheels of cheese on wood shelves.

The controversy started over a cheese maker in upstate New York who was repeatedly cited by FDA inspectors for bacterial contamination. As the Chron and other report, a clarification from the FDA was requested by a Cornell University specialist, which led to FDA section chief Monica Metz issuing the following statement:

Microbial pathogens can be controlled if food facilities engage in good manufacturing practice. Proper cleaning and sanitation of equipment and facilities are absolutely necessary to ensure that pathogens do not find niches to reside and proliferate. Adequate cleaning and sanitation procedures are particularly important in facilities where persistent strains of pathogenic microorganisms like Listeria monocytogenes could be found. The use of wooden shelves, rough or otherwise, for cheese ripening does not conform to cGMP requirements... Wooden shelves or boards cannot be adequately cleaned and sanitized. The porous structure of wood enables it to absorb and retain bacteria, therefore bacteria generally colonize not only the surface but also the inside layers of wood. The shelves or boards used for aging make direct contact with finished products; hence they could be a potential source of pathogenic microorganisms in the finished products.

It turns out that the banning of wood shelves for the aging of cheese was already in existing FDA rules but had not been enforced, and it's estimated that 65 percent of American cheese producers age their cheeses on wood. The reason is that very porousness — generations of cheese makers have learned that the porousness of wood allows for moisture to wick away from the cheese and prevent bacterial growth. Most cheese makers scrub down their racks between agings, and that same Cornell specialist who contacted the FDA says that "some food safety agencies [i.e. all of Europe and Canada] interpret the science to show that wood boards can be maintained in a sanitary fashion to allow for their use for cheese aging, while others (e.g., the US FDA) believe that a general ban of any wooden materials in food processing facilities is the better approach to assure food safety."

Note that if this rule starts getting taken seriously, it will mean an end to imports of all good European cheese. All. All of it.

The FDA has said they'll consider any evidence that will allow for an exception to their rule, but at the moment, the cheese and importers' lobby is going to be doing a full-court press to get this thing killed.

The Chron talks to local Monterey Jack maker Gabe Luddy, of Vella Cheese, who calls this "a crushing blow to the artisan cheese industry," and says he wouldn't even know what other material to use if they're not allowed to use wood for aging.

Update: The FDA looks to be already backing off on this, and claims that it "does not have a new policy banning the use of wooden shelves in cheese-making" despite earlier reports to the contrary. So let's everyone just calm down.

[Chron]
[RealFarmacy]

A local Jane Doe is suing the Food and Drug Administration over regulations she claims are unnecessary and unconstitutional in the way they seek to regulate her chosen method of getting pregnant. Specifically, she and her partner would like to get knocked up using some manseed donated by a charitable fellow without having to go through the "costly and burdensome" process of using a sperm bank.

As it stands, federal regulations require any sort of tissue donor, genetic material included, to be screened for health issues. HIV, Hepatitis and syphilis screenings all make sense for someone donating sperm, but should the recipient try multiple times to get pregnant — that could mean expensive weekly tests and exams for the donor.

For those wondering why our Jane Doe hasn't just circumvented the FDA by carrying out the (ahem) procedure at home behind closed doors — the litigation is being brought to a U.S. District court in Northern California by Cause of Action, a government accountability advocacy group seeking to ease the restrictions on sperm donors who are not charging for their services. According to Cause of Action's lawsuit, the FDA has no businesses regulating "noncommercial, sexually intimate choices and activity" regardless of the risk of transmitted diseases. (And, duh, the FDA isn't regulating every other potential sperm donation that happens between consenting folks.) Meanwhile, there's already legislation in the State Assembly that would allow donors to simplify the screening process. If the legislation passes, the donor would only need to be tested once, assuming the recipient signs off on the proper paperwork.

In late 2011, prolific sperm donor and amateur porn star Trent Arsenault also came under fire from the FDA, which threatened to slap him with a $100,000 fine if he didn't quit churning out unregulated gifts of human genetic material. Arsenault couldn't care less, apparently, he says seven women are currently pregnant with his sperm.

Previously: FDA Decides Fremont Man Is A Sperm Factory, all Trent Arsenault coverage on SFist
[Chron]

Jesus Christ. As if this week could get any worse: A federal advisory panel has recommended that the FDA issue a ban on Vicodin and Percocet due to their damaging effects on the liver. Both painkillers combine a narcotic with acetometophin (a.k.a. Tylenol) -- a combo that's been found to be particularly damaging after extended use -- and along with seven other prescription drugs these two would go off the market if the FDA follows the panel's recommendation, which they usually do. This would be a huge blow to both pharmaceutical companies and pain pill fans alike. As the NY Times reports, "Vicodin and its generic equivalents alone are prescribed more than 100 million times a year in the United States." Whatever will we beg our dentists for the next time we must undergo oral surgery?

Ever since a few cry babies got the sniffles over a few bad tomatoes last week -- fine, it was salmonella food poisoning, but tomatoes are the most awesome thing to eat in the entire universe, so we don't much care for the bad press they've been receiving -- McDonald's has decided to nix all sliced tomatoes on its sandwiches. (Wait, what sandwiches at McDonald's use tomatoes? One of those swank new chicken-ish items this now serve?)

So far 23 people have been hospitalized for eating bad, uncooked tomatoes. In addition to the golden arches, Taco Bell and Chipotle Mexican Grill have stopped using tomatoes n their gastronomic delights. Ralphs, Vons, and Albertsons have also put the kibosh on red plum, red Roma, and round red tomatoes. Poor little fellas.

We hope the FDA pinpoints where these salmonella-infused veggies are coming from. Tomatoes really don't deserve this kind of reputation. They just don't. A sad day, indeed.