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 "experimental" ...
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Chimps: Life in the Lab
The series examines in detail the ethics and scientific necessity of medical research using chimpanzees. Focusing on a group of about 200 chimps in a federal facility in New Mexico, the stories showed the long-term mental and physical impact of constant medical experimentation of the chimpanzees, and it was revealed how scientists were moving toward a consensus that chimp experimentation was not scientifically necessary.
Tags: chimps; monkeys; animals; animal testing
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Government Orders Columbia to Tell Patients 'True Nature' of Drug Study
Columbia University Medical Center conducted a study with experimental surgical fluid on patients undergoing open heart surgery. Subjects were not made aware of the risks of potentially fatal bleeding caused by the fluid. Some of the study's subjects were poor, Spanish-speaking patients who were enrolled without giving formal consent. At least two patients died and more than two dozen required transfusions.
Tags: Columbia University Medical Center; open heart; surgery; fluid; internal bleeding; fatal; study; experimental; emergency room;
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Big Pharma's Shameful Secret
The story and five sidebars investigate the dangers of privately administered drug trials that are killing otherwise healthy people. Because companies stand to make billions on the next block-buster drug, they are taking more risks with their trials and the people who sign up for them. The story offers an in-depth look of the possibly dangerous practices of the largest test center in the U.S., SFCB in Miami, who pay poor citizens and immigrants to be part of their clinical trials.
Tags: prescription drugs; test centers; clinical trials; FDA; SFCB; Miami; Open Records Law; experimental medicine
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Home front: The government's war on soldiers
This book chronicles how George Bush has cut benefits for both veterans and front-line troops. It reports how the Pentagon has ordered soldiers to take experimental medicines that sometimes prove fatal, how defense contractors deliver faulty weapons to soldiers, and how "the true casualty of war is the subsequent body count -- the medical failures, psychological toll and the uninvestigated suicides -- on the home front."
Tags: BOOK; war; Iraq; veterans; soldiers; veterans benefits; Bush; military; Veterans Administration; Gulf War syndrome
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Anthrax
This special report and series of follow-ups investigates allegations made by a former Air Force commander that says the U.S. Government tested an experimental anthrax vaccine on Air Force personnel. Many of these people contracted illnesses not typical for their age brackets and claim the tainted vaccine made them sick. Personnel were not informed of the dangers of the vaccine and were often demoted or discharged if they refused to be vaccinated.
Tags: anthrax; military; medical testing; guinea pigs; vaccine; Air Force; Dover Air Force Base; Pentagon
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Free Rein for Drug Ads?
The Food and Drug Administration has been slow to stop an alarming number of inaccurate drug advertisements, leaving consumers and the doctors that actually prescribe the medicines vulnerable to false or misleading messages. The investigation found ads that minimized prescription drug risks, exaggerated efficacy, made false claims of superiority over competing products, promoted unapproved uses of an approved drug, or promoted use of a drug still in the experimental stage. Such drug ads may contribute to excessive or inappropriate prescribing and to soaring prescription drug spending.
Tags: FDA; Food and Drug Administration; drug advertisements; consumers; FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research; Freedom of Information Electronic Reading Room; FDA regulatory letters; prescription drug risks; Tamiflu; drugmakers; corrective ads; Department of Health and Human Services; General Accounting Office; Fosamax; Ambien; AARP; Prilosec
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How a cancer trial ended in betrayal
The Baltimore Sun's three-part series on BCX-34, an experimental cancer drug. It finds that "with billions at stake, research universities become partners in commerce--and medicine pays a price."
Tags: cancer; cancer trial; medicine; experimental drug; research; NIH; BCX-34
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The price of a cure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the story of a local teen cured of sickle cell through an experimental stem cell transplant performed almost two years ago by Emory University doctors. "The transplant saved Keone's life, but the price of this medical breakthrough had been tremendous and seemingly endless."
Tags: Emory University; sickle cell; medicine; disease; transplant; stem cell transplant; Keone Penn; cord blood transplantation
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Sick in Secret: The Hidden World of Prison Health Care
The American-Statesmen reports on the health care failures of the Texas prison system. The series reveals that - even though the state has hired the University of Texas' medical school to provide care for sick convicts for $297 million a year - the prisons continue to have "deadly inadequacies" in their medical care. "The care is so bad that prisoners angle to join medical experiments that will take them away from prison infirmaries," the investigation reveals. On the other hand, there is evidence that some prisoners have seen both the best and the worst of health care. Some of the difficult cases have been handled with "real-world ferocity" by university doctors, but prisoners have also been left to starve to death in infirmaries and prison clinics operated by the university.
Tags: experimentation on prisoners; Nazi doctors; FOIA requests; medical privacy; health care; drug-resistant HIV
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Trials and Errors
A Newsweek investigation tries to find out if medical experimentation on human volunteers poses an risk. Many experts agree that trials with human subjects are crucial to the creation and success of new drugs and surgical procedures, but Newsweek finds that in may cases experiments have "violated laws meant to protect people who volunteer to test experimental drugs and surgeries." The investigation also found that in some cases doctors may have placed patients on the wrong type of medication or in the wrong study, and may even have hastily pressured patients into their experiments. Some of the biggest problems comes from the oversight of these studies, with hospitals and medical agencies being totally unaware of what certain doctors might be doing. Newsweek discovers cases where subjects have gone blind and even died as a result of experiments.
Tags: Health; medicine; experiments; studies.