New York Times reporter Barry Meier knew lawsuits against the manufacturers of all-metal artificial hips were on the rise. But it wasn’t until I queried a balky Food and Drug Administration database that he was able to confirm that all-metal hip implants were quickly becoming the biggest and costliest medical implant problem since Medtronic recalled a widely used heart device in 2007.

The FDA collects voluntary reports from patients, health care providers and medical device manufacturers about problems experienced with specific devices. The federal agency compiles the reports of deaths, injuries and product malfunctions in a database known as ...

The latest installment of The Associated Press’ PharmaWater investigation seemed unlikely at the initial story conference: no ready data and seemingly nothing to expose. Our national investigative team had broken the story this past year that tens of millions of Americans drink from water supplies that test positive for trace pharmaceuticals. They cover the gamut from antibiotics to psychiatric drugs to sex hormones, mostly in the form of unmetabolized medicines excreted by people. They are found in concentrations far below medical doses, but some aquatic species already have been hurt, and research is raising questions about the effects on humans ...

Editor’s note: In his recent Uplink article, Michael J. Berens of The Seattle Times showed how hospital admission data helped him uncover the scope of drug-resistant infections. But getting medical data is often difficult for journalists because of privacy rules. Here, Nancy Amons of WSMV- Nashville explains how she overcame privacy obstacles to get data for stories about TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program. Amons specializes in investigative and computer-assisted reporting and is a regular speaker at IRE and NICAR conferences. Q: What is the biggest problem you run into while requesting health care-related data? How do you deal with ...

The Florida malpractice attorney bragged about his secret weapon. He reached for the telephone, punched in a call and seconds later introduced me to his consultant — a physician and database expert — who culled out medical information from public databases. The findings became the stuff of class-action suits. Want to know how many times a surgeon left a sponge or other object in a body after surgery? Want to know how many patients had heart surgery and developed lethal infections? Or, how many post-operative infections occur inside a specific hospital? All these answers, and thousands more, are found in a variety ...

It didn't take long to detect doctors' broad disdain for insurers. In interview after interview, doctors expressed frustration that their treatment decisions are repeatedly dictated by insurance companies, sometimes harming their patients. We interviewed doctors who shared stories about writing prescriptions for children with behavior disorders – but the young patients never received the medicine they needed because their insurers interfered. We met a man dying with Hepatitis C who waited weeks before learning that insurance company would cover a second opinion on a potentially life-saving kidney-liver transplant. The anecdotal stories shared by physicians and patients illuminated some of the ...