The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Doctors Drugs Food" ...
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Antibiotics in our Food
The investigative series examines the controversial practice on America's farms of using antibiotics to quickly grow livestock ... a practice that many scientists and doctors believe is contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance in humans.
Tags: antibiotics; farming; food; drug-resistant; resistance
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"Physicians on Pharma's Payroll: Educators or Marketers?"
This story focuses on doctors as industry speakers and their relationship with pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical companies claim to choose speakers based on expertise, but further investigation shows that many of the hired physicians have "serious transgressions on their state records." They also tend to be "high prescribers" of the company's products.
Tags: pharmacy; prescriptions; Geodon; Pfizer; antipsychotic drugs; pharmaceutical companies; Department of Health; New York; Food and Drug Administration
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Bad Bargain
This article identifies several people who suffered consequences after switching from brand name drugs to generic ones. Furthermore, this article identifies loopholes that allow these generic drugs to reach the market. These generics, many of us believe are the same as the brand name ones, are actual substandard and un-equivalent.
Tags: Prescriptions; Drugs; Generic; Food and Drug Administration (FDA); Insurance companies; Brand Name; Doctors; Pharmacy; Pharmaceuticals
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The Evidence Gap
The nations' medical bill last year exceeded $2.7 trillin -- nearly as much as the projected total cost of the Iraq war. If it were medical money well spend, there might be few cries to "reform" the American health care system. But by some estimates, one-third or more of the medical care received by patients in this country may be virtually worthless. The nation is wasting hundreds of billions of dollars each year on superfluous treatments -- money that otherwise could by spent, for example , on providing health insurance for every child, woman and man int his country who currently have no coverage. A team of science and business reporters from The New York Times set out to explain how and why the United States is spending so much on health care with so relatively little to show for the money, They discovered a gaping chasm between scientific evidence and the practice of medicine. In an in-depth series of articles, told through real doctors and patients, and based on information they dug up that was frequently unflattering to medical providers, companies and regulators, the Times team documented many disturbing instances of "The Evidence Gap."
Tags: health care; CT angiograms; Avastin; cancer treatment; reckless spending; Food and Drug Administration; mammograms
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The Killer Cure
Thousands of patients have died as a result of the Food and Drug Administration, along with drug companies, have failed to warn Americans about the dangers of methadone. People are overdosing on methadone, and federal officials hired a doctor on the payroll of a methdaone maker to report on the number of deaths each year.
Tags: FDA; OD; poison; oxycontin; prescription drug; heroin; opium
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Dangerous Remedy
Robert Little of The (Baltimore) Sun reported that the U.S. Army has injected over 1000 soldiers wounded in Iraq with a medicine designed for hemophiliacs despite the fact that it is dangerous for people with normal blood. It can give them blood clots that could cause strokes and heart attacks. It costs $6000 per dose. Civilian doctors "have largely rejected it as a standard treatment for trauma patients." Army doctors say, in their experience, the drug saves lives by stopping hemorrhaging. Little says “Doctors in Iraq's emergency rooms, however, almost never care for their patients long enough to see firsthand whether blood clots or other complications have developed." Little reports that "the drug has never been subjected to a large-scale clinical trial to verify that it works and is safe for patients without hemophilia."
Tags: military medical system; Iraq; coagulant; Institute for Surgical Research; Germany; military hospitals; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; U.S. Department of Defense; DoD; Marines; Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs; U.S. Army Surgeon General; HIPPA; actionable intelligence; Recombinant Activated Factor VII; Novo Nordisk; coagulopathic bleeding;
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Heart Devices
This story explains how corporate and regulatory policies prevented doctors and patients from learning critical information about defects in heart devices such as defibrillators and pacemakers.
Tags: hearts; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; defibrillators; pacemakers; heart disease; regulation; health; healthcare
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Dangerous Doses: How Counterfeiters are Contaminating America's Drug Supply
Eban writes about how medicine available from seemingly trustworthy sources like pharmacies and hospitals is sometimes not safe. The book shows how stolen, expired, mishandled or adulterated medicine cans still make their way into pharmacies and hospitals because they are passed through several other companies who buy and sell to one another. These companies sometimes have ties to drug traffickers and organized crime.
Tags: FDA; Food and Drug Administration; narcotics; hospitals; doctors; pharmaceuticals; pharmaceutical companies; drug dealers; Medicaid; Medicare; Mafia; business; prescription drugs; doctors; pharmacists; Operation Cold Stone
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FDA: A Question of Safety
This investigative series exposed serious FDA lapses in protecting the public. The series shows, "..a dysfunctional FDA which moves to silence and intimidate its own medical officers who bring to light serious risks; an agency which often, paradoxically, executes its role as public protector by shielding information from doctors and patients."
Tags: Food and Drug Administration; heart attack; heart disease; Vioxx; Serzone; Crestor; vaccinations; FOIA
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Hidden Risks, Lethal Truths
This story was initially reported in June of 2000, when the dangerous effects of the diabetes pill, Rezulin, were first discovered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The pill, which was found to cause liver-related deaths in patients, was finally taken off the market in March 2000 after bringing in $2.1 billion in sales for Warner-Lambert Co. This investigation looks at internal documents which uncover Warner-Lambert executives hid early indications of the drug's effects from regulators. The documents also indicate that the company put off sharing the information with family doctors prescribing the medicine with their patients.
Tags: Warner-Lambert Co; Rezulin; federal regulation; Food and Drug Administration; Pfizer; Inc.; drugs