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 "medication" ...
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Bad to the Bone
When four executives of a medical-device company called Synthes went to jail for illegally marketing a bone cement—five patients had died after it was injected into their spines—Mina Kimes knew there had to be a compelling saga behind a case that had generated little coverage beyond local news articles. So she began digging, first with FOIA requests for never-before-published government documents, and then assembling hundreds of pages of court transcripts and internal company e-mails and reports. She used that foundation to begin the harder challenge: persuading Synthes employees, many of them terrified by the criminal case and the company’s intimidating chairman, to talk to her. With six months of grueling, old-fashioned reporting, Kimes succeeded, and “Bad to the Bone” is the masterful result. Not only did she persuade more than 20 current and former company employees to speak, but she also revealed a story whose disturbing breadth far exceeded the case presented in court. Her tour de force reporting raises profound new questions about the culpability of a key figure who wasn’t charged: Hansjörg Wyss, the reclusive and controlling Swiss founder and chairman—one of the richest people in the world—who made crucial decisions about how to sell the bone cement. This is a classic tale of corporate malfeasance: Warned by the government not to sell its bone cement for use in the spine, Synthes ignored the admonition despite clear evidence of lethal danger—a pig had died within seconds when the cement was tested on it—and encouraged surgeons to use the cement on people, five of whom died soon afterward. But “Bad to the Bone” isn’t just an exposé. It opens a window into a broader issue: how the medical system actually runs. Readers see how salespeople with no medical training advise surgeons—inside the OR during operations—on how to use their devices. They experience the tale of one surgeon who continues using the cement even after two of his patients died. Oh, and what sort of justice does Synthes itself receive? Wyss sells it, for $20 billion, to health care giant Johnson & Johnson, which praises Synthes’s “culture” and “values.” Corporate crime. Death on the operating room table. Secret e-mails. Surgeons on the edge. An imperious multibillionaire CEO. It’s a mesmerizing article, and Kimes’s reporting takes readers on a deeply unsettling journey that ensures they’ll never look at the medical system the same way again.
Tags: Medical devices; bone cement; Synthes
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Cracking the Codes
Cracking the Codes documented how thousands of medical professionals have steadily billed Medicare for more complex and costly health care over the past decade – adding $11 billion or more to their fees – despite little evidence elderly patients required more treatment. The series also uncovered a broad range of costly billing errors and abuses that have plagued Medicare for years – from confusion over how to pick proper payment codes to apparent overcharges in medical offices and hospital emergency rooms. The findings strongly suggest these problems, known as “upcoding,” are worsening amid lax federal oversight and the government-sponsored switch from paper to electronic medical records.
Tags: Medicare; health care; billing; medical offices; hospitals; government; medical records
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Death in Police Custody
An investigation into the death of a man who suffocated while in the back of a Milwaukee police squad car found officers had violated department policy in not seeking help and the medical examiner missed key signs pointing toward the officers’ actions being a factor in the death. The stories prompted a wave of action and reform: new departmental rules, a public inquest, an FBI investigation and the resignation of the medical examiner.
Tags: Police; death; department policy; medical examiner
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Los Angeles VA Has Made Millions on Rental Deals
This story is about one of the most fought-over pieces of property in Los Angeles, the 400 acre Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus in West Los Angeles. It’s in an affluent neighborhood and has been a target of developers. But with many unused buildings, it’s also been coveted as a place to house some of L.A.’s 8,000 homeless veterans. That was the original use of the land, which was donated for an Old Soldiers’ Home in the late 19th century. The VA has not acted on plans announced in 2007 to begin rehabbing unused buildings there for housing for homeless vets. Meanwhile, it’s rented out land and buildings to commercial enterprises. There is no public accounting for this income. Through FOIA and other documents, we found that the VA is renting out the property using a law intended for sharing health care resources, though the renters are non-health related commercial enterprises. We were also able to estimate that the VA has taken in at least 28 million and possibly more than 40 million dollars over the past dozen years, far more than the cost of re-habbing a building to house homeless vets.
Tags: Property; neighborhood; land uses; veterans
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The Curious Case of Sgt. Drenth
A decorated and highly respected Phoenix police sergeant is found dead on the ground in an alley near the State Capitol complex, the victim of a shotgun blast to the head. The weapon is discovered on his body in a manner which several first-responders later claim looked "staged" by another party or parties. Almost a year after Sgt. Sean Drenth's death, the county Medical Examiner rules that the manner of his death was a "suicide," not a "homicide" or "undetermined." The enclosed two-part series was published after the reporter investigated this complex and ultimately tragic case for several months. A few weeks ago, the county Medical Examiner personally told Sgt. Drenth's widow that he personally will revisit the case in light of the revelations in the story and other relevant reasons.
Tags: Death; police sergeant; shotguns
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StarTribune: Discipline Deferred
A six-month investigation by the Star Tribune found that the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, once considered a national leader in the regulation of licensed physicians, often doesn’t punish doctors whose mistakes harm patients or who demonstrate a pattern of substandard care. After analyzing information compiled by a national databank and reviewing thousands of pages of court and medical board records, the reporters found that the board, which regulates 20,000 physicians in the state, has been reluctant to punish some doctors who have harmed patients, including more than 100 doctors who were disciplined by other states and even doctors who lost privileges to practice at Minnesota hospitals. The investigation also showed that the board lags behind boards in other states in disclosing information to the public, including data on malpractice judgments or settlements. It also doesn’t disclose whether doctors have been disciplined by regulators in other states or lost their privileges to work in hospitals and other facilities for surgical mistakes and other problems.
Tags: Board of Medical Practice; physicians; doctors; punishment; patients
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A rampant prescription, a hidden peril
The series investigated nursing homes’ use of antipsychotic medications on the elderly, a practice the US Food and Drug and Administration has long warned against because of potentially fatal side effects in people with dementia. The Boston Globe analyzed data from 15,600 nursing homes nationwide and found that about 185,000 residents received antipsychotics in 2010 alone, despite not having a medical condition that warranted such use. The series also revealed that Massachusetts nursing homes commonly use antipsychotics to control agitation and combative behavior in elderly residents who should not be receiving the powerful sedatives, yet state regulators seldom use their authority to reprimand or penalize facilities for this practice.
Tags: Antipsychotics; FDA; nursing homes; Alzheimer's disease
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HBO: NCAA Head Games
Five years into football’s concussions crisis, one group of athletes may be in more danger than any other: college football players. That’s because while leagues from the NFL down to Pop Warner have sharply reduced contact in practice to limit the amount of hits to the head, the NCAA has yet to mandate any rules. A six-month Real Sports investigation found that, over the course of a year, the average college football player is exposed to 70% more hits to the head than an NFL player. All these hits can add up and make it harder for the brain to function and do the work of being a student. In other words, young men going to college purportedly to improve their minds are often doing precisely the opposite—they are damaging them. Once these athletes leave college they’re on their own to deal with the potential consequences. The NFL provides long-term medical care for its football players. The NCAA does not.
Tags: broadcast; college football; athletes; concussions; health; NFL; NCAA; medical care
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The Columbus Dispatch: Credit Scars
The Dispatch documented the plight of thousands who, through no fault of their own, have been denied the chance to buy a home or a car, take out a loan for college, rent an apartment, land a job, join the Armed Forces, receive medical care or even open a checking account.
Tags: Credit cards; credit reports; checking accounts; banks
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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