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 "safety and regulation" ...
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Hospital at Risk
My investigation of the Minnesota Security Hospital, a state-run facility that provides psychiatric treatment to nearly 400 adults deemed "mentally ill and dangerous," uncovered high rates of violence and injuries of employees and patients at the facility, a critical shortage of psychiatrists, and widespread confusion among employees about what to do when a patient becomes violent. I found that much of confusion was the result of the abrasive, threatening management style of head administrator David Proffitt, who was hired in 2011 to reform the facility. I began investigating Proffitt and found he was hired without a basic background check. I uncovered many troubling details from Proffitt's past, including domestic violence, a PhD from a now-defunct online degree mill, a forced resignation from his previous job as the administrator of a private psychiatric hospital in Maine, and other failings. The state ordered Proffitt to resign and the Minnesota legislative auditor began an audit of the department's hiring practices. The assistant commissioner of the Department of Human Services who led the hiring search also resigned. The governor proposed $40 million in renovations to address safety concerns. Regulators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration visited the facility for the first time in 21 years. The facility also implemented new training for employees to reduce violence. My investigation of the facility continues.
Tags: Psychiatrists; domestic violence; injuries
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Startribune:The Day Care Threat
Children had been dying in Minnesota child care at an alarming rate and state regulators and industry leaders had overlooked the problem until our reporting laid bare a series of safety failures that led to the spike in deaths. The reporters made dozens of public record requests and analyzed hundreds of cases to uncover wide problems in the state’s in-home daycare system. They almost all the deaths occurred at in-home daycares, which have more lax regulations than centers. The series also uncovered dozens of cases of sexual abuse, gun violence and negligence that harmed children in the state’s in-home daycare system. It revealed how Minnesota has some of the weakest training and supervision rules in the country for these in-home daycares. The reporters also discovered that critical safety records that would help parents identify problem providers were not accessible to the public. The response to the series was swift and sustained. State regulators implemented changes to improve infant safe sleep practices and they are planning legislation this session to shore up some of the safety problems. The series also highlighted how the lack of information about child care deaths is a national problem.
Tags: Child care; safety; daycare system; sexual abuse; gun violence; negligence
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Poison in the Water
“Poison in the Water” is a WNCN investigation that exposes how state government failed to warn families that the water they were drinking could be killing them. Through six weeks of research and digging through hundreds of FOIA documents, WNCN uncovered the source of the contamination in a Wake Forest, N.C. community and revealed state regulators ignored their own evidence of the danger. “Poison in the Water” held the powerful accountable and sparked calls for state legislative change. As a result, national groundwater advocate, Erin Brockovich, visited the Wake Forest families.
Tags: water safety; government; water contamination; groundwater
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Model Workplaces, Imperiled Workers
The Center's series exposed serious problems with an ever-expanding government program that promises results through cooperative regulation but often has failed to protect the nation's working men and women. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Voluntary Protection Programs, known as VPP, recognize "model workplaces" and offer them an exemption from regular inspections. But in many cases, this government stamp of approval was a hollow trophy, allowing companies to avoid scrutiny and to attract employees. Even after preventable tragedies at these sites, OSHA rarely cracked down.
Tags: OSHA; occupational safety and health administration voluntary protection program; model workplace
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Investigation of fatal pipeline blast
Before the National Transportation Safety Board issued its findings into the 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people, the San Francisco Chronicle had already exposed negligent management by pipeline operator Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and lax regulation by the state and federal governments that contributed to a disaster.
Tags: NTSB; National Transportation Safety Board; Pacific Gas and Electric Co.; pipeline
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Shattered Trust
The public assumes sterile alcohol wipes are sterile or at least clean enough not to be dangerous. But an ongoing investigation in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that wipes -- sterile and nonsterile -- can be dangerously contaminated, and federal regulators are not doing much to protect the public. When there are recalls, the public is not finding out because of lax communication and weak tools for regulators.
Tags: alcohol wipes; public safety; bacteria; public health
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"Lifesaving Drugs, Deadly Consequences"
This investigative piece looks at worker safety issues that affect "the nation's healthcare providers." Health care employees are often put in harms way by handling drugs that are meant to save the "lives of cancer patients," but can be "human carcinogens," too. This report shows that regulation on exposure to these types of drugs in the workplace is weak.
Tags: FOIA; health insurance; Occupational Safety and Health Administration; cancer; OSHA; drugs; chemotherapy
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Grounds for Removal
This investigation reveals lax government oversight of the nation's largest statewide natural gas pipeline system. It shows Texas regulators failing to conduct proper oversight and rarely penalized gas companies after fatal gas explosions.
Tags: gas; pipeline; gas company; public safety; oversight
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Camp Drowning
In this investigation, it looks at the standards and regulations of U.S. summer camps. “Only 25 percent of camps in this country are accredited, meaning they meet 300 health and safety standards”. Many parents send their children to these camps believing their children are safe, but when accidents happen it is too late to do anything.
Tags: kids; Gottesman family; life guards; counselors; license; federal; American Camp Association; state; local
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Theme Park Lawsuits
This investigation looks at a secretive but very critical aspect of theme parks in Florida. This aspect is “how and how often people get hurt in theme parks, and what happens to them if they complain”. Private parks aren’t required to disclose or provide a description of non-fatal injuries and it has become a voluntary action to actually report these injuries.
Tags: federal; state; local; laws; regulations; safety; public; rides; lawsuits; inspections; memorandum of understanding; tourists