ProPublica

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Trump’s war on measurement means losing data on drug Use, maternal mortality, climate change and more

By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a lack of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.

Apr 22

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SHUTTERSTOCK

“Slow pay, low pay or no pay”

Blue Cross authorized mastectomies and breast reconstructions for women with cancer but refused to pay the full doctors’ bills. A jury called it fraud and awarded the practice $421 million.

Apr 17

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A digital billboard in Seminole, Texas, last month. While the measles outbreak has been concentrated in West Texas, cases of pertussis have soared nationwide. | SARAHBETH MANEY/PROPUBLICA

“Not just measles”: Whooping cough cases are soaring as vaccine rates decline

While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak, experts warn that whooping cough and other preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and Trump’s slashing of public health infrastructure.

Apr 15

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Patients who contract measles, a highly contagious disease, develop a skin rash. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The CDC buried a measles forecast that stressed the need for vaccinations

Records show leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff not to release experts’ finding that the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging

Apr 2

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SHUTTERSTOCK

The FDA finally visited an Indian drug factory linked to U.S. deaths. It found problems.

The inspection comes after a ProPublica investigation revealed that drugs made at the Glenmark Pharmaceuticals plant accounted for an outsized share of U.S. recalls for pills that didn’t dissolve properly and could harm people.

Mar 27

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Wildfire smoke covers the Ochocos Mountains in Central Oregon on Aug. 18, 2020. | JAKE THOMAS/THE LUND REPORT

NIH ends future funding to study the health effects of climate change

A critic called the new guidance “catastrophic” and a boon to the fossil fuel industry, saying it would have a “devastating” impact on much-needed research.

Mar 26

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SHUTTERSTOCK

What a wrongful death lawsuit reveals about America’s largest oxygen provider

When an at-risk sleep apnea patient needed his breathing machine replaced, Lincare, a $2.4 billion behemoth with a decadeslong history of regulatory and legal problems, acted slowly. The result was disastrous.

Mar 13

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SHUTTERSTOCK

Internal memos: senior USAID leaders warned Trump appointees of hundreds of thousands of deaths from closing agency

One million children will go untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 people will die from malaria and 200,000 more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade, the memos estimated. The programs were cut anyway.

Mar 4

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus in Atlanta, Georgia. | SHUTTERSTOCK

They worked to prevent death. the Trump administration fired them.

Public health teams are being gutted, imperiling efforts to safeguard organ donation and prevent maternal and infant death. Many workers expressed fear at what would happen to the work they left behind.

Feb 25

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SHUTTERSTOCK

Texas banned abortion. Then sepsis rates soared.

ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

Feb 20