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 "unhealthy" ...
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School Poison: Lead in Drinking Water
WBNS-TV exposed the unhealthy levels of lead in the drinking water at several public schools and revealed the breakdowns in the state government system that is supposed to monitor the water's quality.
Tags: Natural Resources; water main; East Clinton High School; East Clinton Middle School; EPA; Environment;
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Wasting Away: Superfund's Toxic Legacy
An analysis of the EPA's Superfund program listing nearly 100 companies responsible for more than 40 percent of America’s most contaminated sites. Since the Superfund’s creation in 1980, of the 700 sites less than one in five have been cleaned up or removed from the list. From 1998 to 2005, the companies spent more than $1 billion lobbying to the federal government and contributed more than $120 million to federal campaigns.
Tags: hazardous waste; unhealthy; contaminate; EPA; toxic exposure; solid waste;
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farmsubsidy.org
Farmsubsidy.org reports on what happens to the billions spent by the European Union on Common Agricultural Policy. These articles discuss where the subsidies go, and how much money is spent on unhealthy products like alcohol, tobacco, sugar and animal fat.
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Puppy Heartbreak
The website for South-Flordia's Wizard of Claws was known for selling dogs to celebrities along with many other customers, claiming its dogs to be of the best quality. But the dogs people received were very sick and unhealthy, some even dying. Some of the dogs were traced back to the "puppy mills" of the Midwest, where animals are poorly bred under even worse conditions
Tags: Wizard of Claws; puppy mill; pet store; dog; puppy; animal cruelty; breed
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Toxic Offender: Disastrous Sewage Plant Threatens Health
This series documents Twarowski's investigation into complaints of dangerous and unhealthy conditions inside the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Wantaugh, NY. Employees clandestinely videotaped horrendous conditions inside the plant and Twarowski later verified their findings in person. Each visit to the vast plant turned up more safety hazards.
Tags: Environment; pollution; waste treatment; sewage; hepatitis; viruses; public health; OSHA; Public Employee Safety and Health; Department of Environmental Conservation
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Toxic air raises unhealthy odds
This examination centers on an Indianapolis neighborhood that has had more people die of lung cancer than anywhere else in Marion County. The investigation found that residents of the neighborhood, in an industrial part of town, were hospitalized for respiratory problems at rates more than three times the county average. Nevertheless, state and local health officials have done almost nothing to investigate documented risks from air pollution or the health problems they may cause.
Tags: cancer cluster; air pollution; cancer death rates; EPA; Environmental Protection Agency; National Toxic Assessments data; public health
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Unhealthy Hospital
This Chicago Tribune three-day series investigates the "hidden epidemic of life-threatening infections that is contaminating America's hospitals, needlessly killing tens of thousands of patients each year." The Tribune found that in 2000, nearly three-quarters of the deadly hospital-acquired infections were preventable and that serious violations of infection-control standards have been found in nearly three-quarters of the nation's hospitals.
Tags: infections; hospitals; health care; hospital-acquired infections; germs; contamination; infection control
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Unhealthy Partnership
This story looks at for-profit managed mental health care for children on Medicaid and how it's not ensuring access to care for children in need. It argues that the children need guaranteed basic access to care, not a program that only maintains the appearance of success.
Tags: mental health; managed care; children; mental health services for children; for-profit managed mental health care; Medicaid; the Partnership
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The Poisoning of Whitaker
A Willamette Week investigation reveals that Oregon's worst performing middle school contains levels of radon, a radioactive gas, far in excess of the safe maximum determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The school is also notorious for unhealthy levels of carbon dioxide caused by the lack of open windows and the circulation of air through contaminated underground tunnels. District officials have been aware of the problems for more that a decade, the story reports. One of the major findings is that the radon contamination and the poor air quality have "contributed to chronically high student and teacher absenteeism ... and academic achievement far lower than would be predicted by Whitaker's socioeconomic level."
Tags: environment; safety; pollution; teachers; students; education
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IRE Feed 2 "Award Finalist"
A compilation of 11 stories. 1.) "Airport Security" WCPO, Cincinnati, No criminal background checks for airport workers and other violations of security rules. 2.) "Too Young to Die" KCBS, Los Angeles, The National Cancer Institute stopped recommending that women get mammograms, causing uninsured women to die early deaths. 3.) "Ford Height Four" WMAQ, Chicago, Were four black men wrongly convicted of robbery, rape, and murder, because police withheld information and a key witness lied? A killer confesses. 4.) "Sexual Predators" WLTV, Jacksonville, A law drops some sexual predators from the public list. 5.) "Shooters" WAGA, Atlanta, Convenience stores selling shooters, a brown bag full of everything you need to smoke crack, but the crack. 6.) "Cleaner Gasoline" KGO, San Francisco, The Air Resources Board threw out data that shows a news gas could make your car catch fire. 7.) "The Business of Charity" WRAL, Raleigh, Sales of donated clothes by non-profit organizations equals big money. 8.) "Stolen Dreams" News 12 Long Island, Salesmen stealing pension and retirement dreams. 9.) "Chemical Reaction" WXYZ, Detroit, Did General Motors protect it's workers from deadly and unhealthy chemicals? 10.) "Conspiracy of Silence" CBC, Alberta, Workers denied their workers compensation. 11.) "Nursing Homes: Care and Crisis" WDIV, Detroit, Bed sores, neglect and more.
Tags: TAPE; WCPO; KCBS; WMAQ; WLTV; WAGA; KGO; WRAL; News 12 Long Island; WXYZ; CBC; WDIV.