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 "epidemics" ...
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No Small Thing
The Poughkeepsie Journal series “No Small Thing” goes where no other newspaper or media outlet has – it challenges the mainstream medical dogma on Lyme disease. In rigorously documented articles, Projects Writer Mary Beth Pfeiffer concludes that the major actors in this public health scandal -- chiefly the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Infectious Disease Society of America – have minimized and mismanaged a burgeoning epidemic of tick-borne disease at great harm to thousands of infected people. These two powerful institutions have held – in policy and pronouncement -- that Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and easy to cure. It is neither.
Tags: Media coverage; public health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CDC
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Critical Delays: Dallas County’s Response to the West Nile Epidemic
In the summer of 2012, Dallas County became the epicenter of the worst West Nile virus outbreak in American history. This investigation revealed critical delays in Dallas County’s response contributed to the health epidemic, where 15 people died and more than 150 others were left with long-term disabilities including brain damage, and muscle paralysis in Dallas County alone.
Tags: Health; West Nile virus; epidemic; Dallas
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Empty-desk epidemic
For years, Chicago officials published upbeat statistics that masked a crisis in the city's schools: Nearly 32,000 of the city's K-8 grade students — or roughly 1 in 8 —miss a month or more of class per year, while others simply vanish from school without a trace. This devastating pattern of absenteeism, which disproportionately affects African-Americans and children with disabilities, came to light only after Chicago Tribune reporters dug it out during a years-long FOIA battle to obtain internal district data.
Tags: K-12 education; schools; absenteesim; Chicago; statistics manipulation
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Prescription Drug
An investigation into the prescription drug epidemic on New York's Long Island. Newsday exposes the failure by the region's doctors to use a state database that identifies patients going to multiple doctors and pharmacies to get pills.
Tags: prescription; drug; pharmacy; doctors; pills; New York
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Saving Grace: How One Dog Escaped the Shadowy World of American Puppy Mills
The book exposes the epidemic of puppy mills in the U.S. It documents large-volume commercial kennels where ill and often injured dogs are caged in squalor and forced to bear puppies until they are worn out.
Tags: animal abuse; puppy mill; dogs
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Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
The books details the startling rise since 1955 in the number of "disabled" mentally ill adults in our society. The book asks if if the "drug-based paradigm of care" in the U.S. is fueling the epidemic of mental illness.
Tags: mental illness; disabled; drugs
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When Immunity Fails: Whooping Cough Epidemic
KPBS and the Watchdog Institute investigated the whooping cough outbreak of 2010 that sickened thousands of people across the country and killed 23. This investigation contributed to the launch of new studies on the disease.
Tags: whooping cough; immunization; sickness; babies; vaccination; pertussis
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Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
This book documents how the per-capita disability rate due to mental illness has increased six-fold since 1955, when Thorazine was introduced into asylum medicine. The number of adults on government disability has tripled since 1987, the year Prozac was introduced. Finally, the number of children receiving disability due to a serious mental illness has risen 35-fold since 1987.
Tags: medicine; psychiatry; psychiatric medicine; Thorazine; Prozac; disability; mental illness; National Institute of Mental Health; World Health Organization; American Psychiatric Association;
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When Immunity Fails: Whooping Cough Epidemic
The reporters investigate how the whooping cough, an epidemic wiped out 30 years ago, has come back with a vengeance. Thousands were sickened by the disease in 2009 and 23 people died.
Tags: whooping cough; epidemic; disease; dead; outbreak
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Dangers in the Dust: Inside the Global Asbestos Trade
The investigation finds that a global network of industry groups has spent nearly $100 million to keep asbestos on the market. Public health authorities say this campaign is helping create new epidemics of asbestos-related disease in countries around the world.