California Medical Board: Where Are The Sanctions?

Patient Safety: More than 700 troubled doctors have escaped discipline by California's medical board even though they have been sanctioned by hospitals and other health providers, Molly Hennessey-Fiske reports for the Los Angeles Times.  

Patient Privacy: Irony alert: an employee from the auditor hired by the federal government to review hospitals' compliance with the national HIPAA patient privacy law, um, lost a flash drive containing 4,500 patient names and information, Dom Nicastro reports for HCPro.

Fracking: For shale gas to meet its potential as a domestic fuel source, millions of Americans will have to live with drill rigs in or near their own neighborhoods, prompting health concerns about exploding pipelines, contaminated water and air pollution, Charles W. Schmidt writes for Environmental Health Perspectives.  

Health Insurance: Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain, plans to sell health insurance coverage to consumers starting this fall, CNN Money reports.

Food Safety: According to a new study, large organic poultry farms have lower levels of one group of drug-resistant bacteria than their conventional counterparts, which treat routinely chickens with antibiotics to speed their growth, Eliza Barclay reports for NPR.

Want more from Reporting on Health? Join us, sign up for our newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.