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 "error rates" ...
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Prescriptions for Error
"The ABC Investigative Team filled 100 prescriptions at the country's top retail pharmacies in four states. Our undercover investigation found a shocking 22% error rate, 1 out of 5, of prescriptions filled at major retails pharmacies. In another shocking finding, the people behind the counter filling the prescriptions were often not trained pharmacists, but high schools students."
Tags: medicine; prescriptions; pharmacy; pharmacist; Florida; Walgreen's;
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Relicensing Oyster Creek
"An investigation into the weakness of the Oyster Creek nuclear generating station, the oldest commercial nuclear plant in the nation, as it seeks to run for another 20 years. The series found that the reactor's radiation containment system was so weak that it could not with stand core damage, and that this design flaw is common in the nuclear industry. The plant is also showing signs of poor aging, such as weakened reactor metal, failing control cables, and lack of proper training for employees. Employee errors have caused several safety issues at the plant which was rated one of the worst in the nation. "State officials also have failed to adequately design evacuation plans for the seaside tourist areas."
Tags: nuclear; reactor; radiation; evacuation; safety
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Fatal Errors, Secret Deaths
The Hartford Courant investigates covered-up deaths resulting from neglect and staff errors in Connecticut's group homes for mentally retarded. Patients often fell victim to suffocation, drowning, choking, burns and potentially treatable infections. Other findings include that the state secretive system conceals suspicious deaths and their causes not only from the general public, but even from next of kin; that the death rate in group homes has tripled from 1990 to 2000; and that the State Department of Mental Retardation is ineffective in investigating and taking actions against faulty group home operators. The group home system costs Connecticut taxpayers $260 million a year, the Courant reports.
Tags: mental health; FOI requests; development disabilities; state government; health care
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Incomes, discarded votes may be linked
"Voters in Florida's poorer counties were more than twice as likely as those in a more affluent ones to have their votes for president disregarded," according to a Tallahassee Democrat analysis of the 2000 election... The correlation between discarded ballots and income was stronger than the link between the type of balloting machine used and disregarded ballots. The fact that lower-income counties are likely to have more elderly and new minority voters may also predispose those counties to have more votes disregarded. More first-time and inexperienced minority voters may have gone to the polls after a statewide get-out-the-vote campaign initiated by the state Democratic party and labor and civil rights groups. In counties using optical-scanner ballots, presidential votes were not counted 3.4 percent of the time, compared to 4.7 for those counties using punch-card ballots. However, counties using punch-card balloting had higher average incomes than those using optical-scanner balloting: $24, 849 for punch cars and $21, 464 for optical scanners."
Tags: elections; elderly voters; board of elections; error rates; income levels; presidential election 2000; Bush; Gore; discarded votes; Florida recount
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Small Airlines Likely to Remain Unsafe
Rocky Mountain News (Denver) investigates the safety of regional airlines; the smaller planes commonly flown by regional airlines have an accident rate of 1.43 per 100,000 flights, compared to 0.43 per 100,000 flights for aircraft with more than 30 seats; pilot error and insufficient regulation add to the problem.
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No title (id: 5463)
WJLA-TV (Washington) airs series investigating accuracy of drug testing labs; undercover company supplied spiked and altered urine samples to commercial labs and found 82 percent error rate, Feb. 15 - 19 and Dec. 23, 1987.
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No title (id: 4648)
San Francisco Bay Guardian studies San Francisco Health Department statistics that show only a small gap between the infant death rates for blacks and whites; finds many errors in the way the figures were derived, March 4, 1987.
Tags: CA