Health Care
Pulling Back the Curtain on the Health Industry and Regulation
Is Your Medication Made in a Contaminated Factory? The FDA Won’t Tell You.
The agency’s decision to conceal drug names on inspection reports has prevented doctors, pharmacists and patients from knowing whether medications made overseas are tainted by manufacturing failures that could make them ineffective or unsafe.
Here’s What Happened When ProPublica Reporters Tried to Find Out Where a Popular Prescription Drug Was Made
We wanted to know where a widely used prescription drug that treats high cholesterol was manufactured and whether the factory had quality issues. The search led to a labyrinth of company names and databases that few would know about.
Why Did You Leave the Department of Veterans Affairs?
ProPublica wants to hear from doctors, nurses and other front-line medical providers who recently left positions at a VA hospital or clinic.
Idaho Banned Vaccine Mandates. Activists Want to Make It a Model for the Country.
The Idaho Medical Freedom Act makes it illegal to require anyone to take a vaccine or receive “medical intervention.” Leslie Manookian, the activist behind the law, hopes to make it a “societal norm” for the rest of the country.
Featured Reporters
Impact of Our Reporting
Senators Propose Sweeping Changes to Generic Drug Oversight
Citing a ProPublica investigation, lawmakers are calling on the FDA to conduct more drug testing and to alert hospitals and other purchasers when foreign manufacturers with safety failures are given a special pass to send their products to the U.S.
NIH Launches New Multimillion-Dollar Initiative to Reduce U.S. Stillbirth Rate
Clinical teams across the country are forming a five-year, $37 million consortium to research stillbirth, a long-neglected public health concern. “There’s no question that the ProPublica reporting was intimately tied to this,” one expert said.
“Unacceptable”: Prominent U.S. Senators Demand FDA Provide Names of Troubled Foreign Drugmakers Skirting Import Bans
Citing a recent ProPublica investigation, Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said they had “urgent concerns” about the agency’s oversight of foreign drugmakers and whether medications coming into the U.S. are safe.
Series
Series: Veterans’ Care at Risk: Rapid Change Under Trump Creates Uncertainty
Series: Unattended: Idaho’s Troubled Coroner System
Series: Rx Roulette: The FDA’s Dangerous Gamble on America’s Drugs
Series: Broken Pathways: How a Medicaid Work Requirement Program Fails Georgians
Series: Life of the Mother: How Abortion Bans Lead to Preventable Deaths
Series: America’s Mental Barrier: How Insurers Interfere With Mental Health Care
Series: Veterans Without Assistance: Investigating Mental Health Care in the VA System
Series: Long-Term Challenge: Maine’s Lax Oversight of Residential Care Facilities
Series: With Every Breath: Millions of Breathing Machines. One Dangerous Defect
Series: Arterial Motives: The Big Business of Clogged Arteries
Series: The Hospice Hustle: How a Visionary Movement Became a Plaything for Profiteers
Series: Culture of Cruelty: Inside Illinois’ Mental Health System
Series: Stillbirths: When Babies Die Before Taking Their First Breath
Series: Crisis Point: How New York Wrecked Mental Health Care for Kids
Series: HeartWare: Deadly Malfunctions, FDA Inaction and Vulnerable Patients
Series: St. Jude’s Unspent Billions: Behind the Hospital’s Claims to Donors
Series: Birth Rights: Investigating Florida’s NICA Program
Series: State of Denial: Inside Arizona’s Division of Developmental Disabilities
Series: Critical Condition: Investigating the Business of Oklahoma’s Rural Hospitals
Series: Coronavirus: The U.S. Response to COVID-19
Series: Opioid Billionaires: The Deceptive Marketing of OxyContin
Series: A 911 Emergency: Rhode Island’s Deadly 911 Flaws
Series: The $3 Million Research Breakdown: University of Illinois at Chicago’s Troubling Study
Series: Sloan Kettering’s Crisis: A Reckoning Over Industry Ties
Series: A Sick System: Repeat Attacks After Pleading Insanity
Series: Trauma After Tragedy: PTSD in First Responders
Series: Stuck Kids: Illinois Children Languish in Psychiatric Hospitals
Series: Health Insurance Hustle: The Confounding Way We Pay for Care
Series: Heart Failure: The Decline of a Historic Transplant Program
Series: Lost Mothers: Maternal Care and Preventable Deaths
Series: Wasted Medicine: Squandered Health Care Dollars
Series: Policing Patient Privacy: Patient Privacy and Medical Care
Series: Examining Medicare: A Closer Look at Medicare Part B
Series: Obamacare and You: The Rollout of the Affordable Care Act
Series: Overdose: Acetaminophen and Accidental Overdoses
Series: Nursing Homes
Series: Patient Safety: Exploring Quality of Care in the U.S.
Series: Dialysis: High Costs and Hidden Perils of a Treatment Guaranteed to All
Series: Dollars for Doctors: How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
Series: Omniscan: Specter of MRI Disease Haunts General Electric
Series: When Caregivers Harm: America’s Unwatched Nurses
This Little-Known Appeal Could Force Your Insurer to Pay for Lifesaving Care. Here’s How to File It.
Psychiatric Hospitals Turn Away Patients Who Need Urgent Care. The Facilities Face Few Consequences.
What We’re Watching
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely.
Learn more about our reporting team. We will continue to share our areas of interest as the news develops.
Sharon Lerner
I cover health and the environment and the agencies that govern them, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
Andy Kroll
I cover justice and the rule of law, including the Justice Department, U.S. attorneys and the courts.
Melissa Sanchez
I report on immigration and labor, and I am based in Chicago.
Jesse Coburn
I cover housing and transportation, including the companies working in those fields and the regulators overseeing them.
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