Resources: Contest Entries

Place: Special Judges' Citation

This article and sidebars expose the domination of Blue Cross Blue Shield in the South Carolina health insurance market and its effect on consumers. Before this report, the insurance giant brushed off criticism as unfounded. Among the newspaper's findings:

• Blue Cross Blue Shield sits on far more capital reserves than it needs – money that should have been returned to policyholders through rebates or lowered premiums – even as it continually hikes rates.
• The state Department of Insurance does not review rate increases and the agency's former director (he resigned in December) took a caviler approach to regulation.
• The nine members of Blue Cross Blue Shield's board of directors have more than doubled their reported salaries in the past year.
• Almost all state lawmakers involved in legislative insurance committees receive sizable campaign contributions from Blue Cross Blue Shield.

• S.C. Blue Cross flush with cash
• S.C. regulators question little
• S.C. Blue Cross target of federal investigation

Judges’ comments: An ambitious and courageous effort by a small-market newspaper which revealed that South Carolina’s dominant health insurer was flush with reserves and was paying executives and board members handsomely while consistently winning rate increases from less-than-vigilant regulators.

Place: Honorable Mention

This investigation found that DaVita's use of the anemia drug Epogen – a drug found to be dangerous at high levels – was higher than any other company when Medicare was reimbursing the kidney dialysis firm per dosage. Two weeks before the government stopped reimbursing per dosage, company protocol changed drastically – in a significant shift, levels of the drug were kept lower in kidney dialysis patients than ever before. Fortune's reporting showed a direct correlation between the drug's usage and its money-making potential. It also found DaVita used high amounts of the drug when it was profitable despite several key studies and FDA warnings that raised cause for concern.

Judges’ comments: A commendable look at a major public employer in the coverage area with questionable business practices.

Place: Third Place

Fortune tells the inside story of the abrupt downfall of the leader of one of the world's largest and most important companies. Jeff Kindler, named CEO of Pfizer at the age of 51, was a brilliant litigator who harbored ambitions to join Barack Obama's cabinet or launch his own political career. Instead, he found himself out of a job, the target of a sophisticated palace coup. Kindler departed with a $25 million severance package, even as the company's stock declined 36 percent under his watch.

Judges’ comments: A laudatory behind-the-scenes narrative of palace intrigues at the world's biggest drugmaker, with a gripping, wonderfully detailed narrative and well-paced tick-tock.

Place: Second Place

With medical costs spiraling upward and state-paid insurance coverage evaporating, why are hospitals building expensive emergency rooms and encouraging patients with sprains and cuts to come there for care? To try to answer that question, Ostrom looked at the building boom, the incentives offered hospitals in the state (almost all of which are nonprofit), insurance reimbursements, a state program that helps float tax-exempt bonds for hospital construction, property-tax exemptions and, briefly, at the state's Certificate of Need program. She also talked to hospital CEOs and other officials about why they're building new ERs and how they calculate that such construction is good for their bottom line.

Place: First Place

This two-part series details how Houston leads the nation in the number of private ambulance companies, number of vehicles and their connection to for-profit mental health clinics. This series noted Medicare spending in the Houston area for both areas – EMS and for-profit mental clinics were the largest for these provider areas. Stories also noted how Medicare does not police the spending well, how Medicare overpayments to EMS companies in Texas is the No. 1 problem for the Medicare contractor, TrailBlazer Health Enterprises. This series also noted the problems in city and state regulation of private EMS companies.

• Private ambulances take Medicare, taxpayers for a ride
• Doctors who oversee EMS companies sanctioned
• Medicare dollars mean payday for clinics
• Home health care firms breaking rules, raking in Medicare dollars

Judges’ comments: A very nice distillation of a big problem in health care that could easily been done with a "ripping off the taxpayers" treatment. Instead, the writers and editors personalized the tale by showing how the poor, sick and mentally vulnerable are pawns in a much bigger game. In a time of dwindling resources at big city newspapers, the judges also commend the time and manpower commitment devoted to the series.

Place: Third Place

This is a story about the sex lives of women after they have undergone treatment for breast cancer. It is a frank discussion of their situation, enlightening, heartbreaking and still empowering. It reveals there are not many resources for these women but that they still attempt and succeed in some cases to have intimacy with their partners.

Judges’ comments: This is a sensitive subject rarely covered in consumer articles about breast cancer survivors, but one that must surely weigh heavily on the minds of women diagnosed with the disease. Georgie Binks treats it with dignity and compassion through interviews with Canadian breast cancer survivors whose experiences indicate that there are relatively few resources available to help women with the sexual problems they may face but that some can still succeed in regaining intimacy with their partners.

Place: Second Place

The story offers a window into the human impact of traumatic brain injury while exploring some of the mysteries of survival from catastrophic injury. It relates the astonishing experience of 30-year-old Deborah Shurson, who plummeted 2,600 feet to Earth in a skydiving accident in 1982. She suffered staggering injuries: a punctured lung, damaged spleen and multiple fractures to her ribs, pelvis, legs and sternum. But it was her brain injury that ultimately would prove to be the greatest threat to her life. Her rescuers found her unconscious and never expected her to survive the night, much less walk, talk or return to normal life. The story follows Deborah's progress in the decades following the accident, as she stumbles through rehabilitation and ultimately meets another brain-injured patient, Gary Fairchild, who becomes her partner in renewal. 

Judges’ comments: Ruthann Richter met the subject of her riveting article in 2000 and finally told her remarkable tale more than a decade later. Deborah Shurson fell 2,600 feet to earth in a 1982 skydiving accident and astonished her doctors, friends and loved ones by surviving. Richter followed Shurson through decades of struggle with rehabilitation, through a divorce, and ultimately into a loving and mutually beneficial relationship with a brain-injured man whose limited abilities complemented her own. There’s no fairy-tale ending here – but a sympathetic and truthful description of the struggles that begin once doctors have exhausted their magic.

Place: First Place

"His Final Choice" follows Robert Good through terminal cancer and his choice to fill a prescription for drug that would end his life. The story delves into the emotions surrounding physician aid in dying, including the anger, compassion and acceptance of Good's life partner Eve Syapin. Good gives insight into the fear and pain of throat cancer in its final phase. Most of all, the story highlights the comfort Good felt by having the choice to end his life within an arm's reach, without the stigma of suicide. (Under the Washington State Death With Dignity law, physician aid in dying is not considered a suicide). Though the story set out to be one of following someone using the prescription, what emerged is a narrative about the comfort of having the choice. The side story "Controversy and choices: Doctors, activists stand on both sides of the issue" explores the more political side of Death With Dignity, the law that allows physician aid in dying. While voters passed the law with a large margin in 2008, many doctors, or entire organizations, will not prescribe the medication due to personal, ethical or religious beliefs. The story also explains the logistics of using the medication and some of the difficulties people have finding a doctor who will prescribe them the drug.

Judges’ comments: There have been many stories about the legislative, legal and ethical arguments surrounding Washington’s Death With Dignity legislation, but few that have presented the emotional impact of the decision on a patient and his partner with the direct elegance of “His Final Choice” from the Skagit Valley Herald. Tahlia Honea’s sympathetic but honest treatment of Robert Goode’s terminal cancer, his long and loving relationship with Eve Syapin, and above all, the comfort he drew from knowing he could end his life on his own terms – even though he put off taking his pills until death was very near – highlight one impact of the law that few have spoken about. It took skill and determination to follow this story to its sad but emotionally satisfying end. Scott Terrell’s straightforward photographs – in particular his appealing cover portrait – added detail and depth to our understanding of the major characters. Details about the law itself, the difficulty people have finding doctors who will prescribe life-ending drugs, and inclusion of opinions from people on both sides of the issue added the proper context to a first-rate report and a fine example of character-based storytelling.

Place: Honorable Mention

This series examined the impact of California's elimination of the Medi-Cal Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) benefit on minority communities. ADHC provides meals, therapy and medical care, as well as companionship and a sense of community, to 38,000 poor elderly and disabled Californians. The centers also provide jobs for hundreds of local residents and relief to thousands of families of loved ones who participate in the program. The project was the result of a partnership between the CHCF Center for Health Reporting and nine Los Angeles area ethnic media organizations. In many of these communities, local media are residents' sole means of finding out about local issues. Under the direction of the Center, with coordinating help from New America Media, the collaboration produced 10 print stories in four languages (English, Spanish, Chinese and part of one story in Tagalog), three audio slideshows and a photo gallery.

• Bibiana Viernes: Her Center, Her Life (Video)
• Mary Sanchez: I Only Have Two Hands (Video)
• Photography Gallery: Adult Health Center Cuts Devastate Elderly, Disabled
• A Partnership With Ethnic Media on Senior Health Stories

Judges’ comments:  Because of deep budget cuts in California, the Adult Day Health Centers were slated for elimination. This series looked at the impact on the seniors and disabled people who count on ADHC services. Across California, nearly 40-thousand people depend on these centers for meals and medical care as well as a sense of community.

The project was a partnership between the California Health Care Foundation’s Center for Health Reporting and nine Los Angeles area ethnic media organizations. In many Los Angeles communities, local media are residents’ only means of following the news. With coordinating help from New America Media, this multi-lingual partnership yielded 10 print stories in four languages, three audio slideshows and a photo gallery.

This is local news at its finest — right at the community level.  It is also foundation-backed journalism at its finest. The Center for Health Reporting stayed with the story as ADHC was slated to be eliminated on February 29, 2012. But at the last moment, the state relented and replaced ADHC with a new program — still the state says only half the current participants will be able to continue to receive services. The Center for Health Reporting says that the advocacy community read the stories produced and used them in its efforts to save the ADHC program.

Place: Third Place

This yearlong series pinpoints billions of dollars of waste in four areas of the nation's health care system.

Judges’ comments:  This yearlong series from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review pinpointed billions of dollars of waste in the nation’s health care system. Spanning the nation from Maine to Miami and from New York to California, with in-depth and investigative reporting by Luis Febregas, Andrew Conte; the Tribune-Review highlighted critical spending issues from unnecessary readmissions to billions being spent on new facilities without review or proof of need.

This series utilized poignant humanization… great photography, striking graphics and an extensive interactive web presentation to drive home the points of the investigation.

Within days of their pointing out that Pennsylvania was one of only 14 states nationwide without a Certificate of Need review process for new hospitals and other equipment, Pennsylvania legislators were drafting new legislation to reinstate the process.

The extensive travel, weeks of data analysis and follow-up reporting in this entry made a difference in the nation’s health care spending practices.

Place: Second Place

This story explores the perils of cancer screening, the process of searching for cancer in asymptomatic people. It is something most Americans consider life-saving, but Kate Pickert pulled back the curtain to explain this is not always the case. Screening can, in fact, be life threatening and is big business for powerful sectors of the U.S. health care system. It may be better not to find some cancers at all, given that many are inconsequential and the impulse to treat them with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy is so great. Pickert delved into the entire cancer screening apparatus and looked at other misguided screening protocols that get far less attention.

Judges’ comments: Kate Pickert asks the multimillion dollar question … “Are some cancers better left undiscovered?’ As she powerfully illustrates, simply asking the “C” (cancer) question can be life threatening and is big business for powerful sectors of the U.S. health care industry.  Pickert points out that it may be better off to not find some answers, given that many cancers are inconsequential and the impulse to treat is so great.               

This article raised important issues about a number of tests and broke new ground by looking at several screening protocols that are on the rise and might save one life while harming thousands of others, forcing many to endure myriad unrelated interventions to treat innocuous findings.

Time used strong graphics to drive its points home and left readers with solid advice on which tests readers should undergo and gave important questions to ask before screenings.

Place: First Place

Each of the five stories tells the personal story of an individual who has been living with a secret – a severe mental illness – while living what appears from the outside to be a normal, successful life.

• Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight
• Learning to Cope With a Mind’s Taunting Voices
• Executive With Schizoaffective Disorder Uses Job to Cope
• Man Uses His Schizophrenia to Gather Clues for Daily Living
• Ex-Convict Uses Battle With Addiction and Mental Illness to Help Others

Judges’ comments: Benedict Carey breaks new ground in the understanding of living with severe mental illness. As Carey reveals in five portraits told over six months, people with severe mental illness can live successful and fulfilling lives. But more than inspirational stories, Carey’s reports are crafted to share each person’s coping strategies in dealing with inner voices or compulsions. For people with severe mental illness, medications and therapies alone are not enough. Carey has found the real experts in the field and his reporting has had an impact.

 As Carey tells us in his application, “The series resulted in changes in curriculum in some federal mental health programs – the stories became part of the program, as teaching tools. University professors, as well as dozens of mental health programs across the country, are also using them as educational material – to show how people can cope with severe diagnoses.”

Carey’s reporting has given new hope to scores of people living with diseases many thought barred them from living successful lives. We are delighted to award “Lives Restored” the first-place award.

Place: Honorable Mention

Using data from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Lisa Chedekel reported that the state-funded University of Connecticut's John Dempsey Hospital was administering combination CT scans of the chest to almost half of all patients who received the procedure – which was nearly 10 times higher than the national average. In addition, more than 72 percent of patients who received CT scans for the abdomen received double scans. Her story was reported at a time when combination scans were under scrutiny because they may expose patients to excess radiation. The head of UConn's radiation department admitted that the numbers were "staggering'' and added that "radiation safety is very high on our list of concerns. The story disclosed that most of the state's 30 hospitals were below the national average on combination CT scans. 

Judges’ comments: Lisa Chedekel packs a powerful punch in a small space with this story pointing out that John Dempsey Hospital's used combination CT scans 10 times more than the national average and sent roughly three-quarters of patients for double scans. Such practices expose patients to excess radiation. Faced with Chedekel's questions, the hospital's radiation chair said he would be contacting doctors to push for change.

Place: Third Place

These stories examined a prominent local company, Bioletics, and its founder, Dr. Richard Cohen, concluding that the company likely did not live up to its promises of science-based performance enhancement and that Cohen had violated portions of Oregon law that prohibits people from portraying themselves as a physician without proper licensing.

• History of sanctions: Bioletics founder has been cited in the past
• Athlete buyers, beware: Experts question company's approach
  

Judges’ comments: Betsy Q. Cliff shines the light on one of the many companies that makes claims about nutritional supplements – in this case, specifically promising to improve athletic performance. Cliff explains to readers why Bioletics can make claims about athletic performance but cannot promise medical improvements. She also gives Bioletics "doctor" consultant plenty of opportunity to explain the benefits of his product, explanations that ring hollow when Cliff then cites medical evidence from other experts. And then comes the coup de grace, when Cliff explains that the consultant, Richard Cohen, is licensed to practice medicine on only his own family and that this license applies in only one state.

Place: Second Place

Bloomberg Markets magazine senior writer Michael Smith identified and reported the stories of impoverished victims, brokers and doctors involved in illicit organ transplant trafficking in Latin America, Europe and Africa. Smith traveled for much of 2011 in poor neighborhoods and hospitals in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru, as well as former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe. He documented how illegal networks of brokers and physicians exploit the poor and profit from wealthy Americans, Europeans and Israelis in need of kidney transplants. The result is often injury, sometimes death and usually a life of humiliation for both those selling and buying kidneys.

• Desperate Americans Buy Kidneys From Peru Poor in Fatal Trade
• Delmonico Says Many Hazards in Illicit Organ Transplants  
• Organ Gangs Force Poor to Sell Kidneys for Desperate Israelis
• Organ Traffickers Coerce, Intimidate Impoverished 

Judges’ comments: Bloomberg Markets makes its worldwide reach felt with these thorough reports on the human toll of the illicit trade in organs. Senior writer Michael Smith (Santiago) called upon a legion of reporters to track down donors, recipients and government officials. This team identified the nations whose citizenry play the largest role in perpetuating this trade. They showed the vast disparity between what is paid and what the donor receives. And, they documented the debilitating – and sometimes tragic – losses suffered by both donors and recipients.

Place: First Place

During the 10 years he worked at St. Luke's hospital, Dr. Stefan Konasiewicz performed more neurosurgeries than any other doctor in Duluth and became the city's highest-paid physician. Yet he also amassed scores of patient complaints and numerous lawsuits, eventually leading insurance companies to deem him uninsurable.

The News Tribune identified nearly 90 cases of alleged patient harm by Konasiewicz, beginning with eight malpractice suits which the hospital settled for at least $3.2 million. The newspaper also showed that St. Luke's, which went from operating at a deficit to a healthy surplus during Konasiewicz's tenure, kept him on staff despite numerous warnings from other physicians about the quality of his care.  By going to court to release a sealed document, the News Tribune showed that the state medical board only took action against the physician after a county medical examiner wrote the board asking for an investigation to determine "if Dr. Konasiewicz is incompetent or reckless."

Finally reprimanded by the state medical board for causing permanent patient harm and deaths, Konasiewicz left Minnesota for Texas, where he faced no restrictions on his license and continued to garner patient complaints.

• As Duluth hospital reaped millions, surgeon racked up complaints
• Multiple allegations against former St. Luke's doctor
• Ailing patients speak out about former Duluth doctor
• Wisconsin restricts former Duluth doctor’s license
• In Texas, former Duluth surgeon may be sanction-free
• Federal database of malpractice cases doesn't make public doctors' names, or where they practice

Judges’ comments: Writer Brandon Stahl and the Duluth News Tribune showed exceptional doggedness and courage in chronicling malpractice allegations against one physician and the defense mounted by hospital administrators despite warnings from their own staff. The News Tribune fought vigorously to have records made public and, although confronted by a libel suit, the newspaper continued its reporting. When Konasiewicz moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, Stahl found an ally in a local TV station and was able to identify Texas patients with complaints about the care they'd received. Stahl and the News Tribune then went further, explaining why these patients would not likely be able to sue in Texas because of the impact of tort reform in that state. The coverage showed impressive and laudable commitment by the reporter and the newspaper, and we believe it speaks volumes to the medical community about the media's tenacity when it comes to defending the voiceless.

AHCJ resource: Reporter Q&A: Duluth News Tribune exposes malpractice allegations

Place: Honorable Mention

This Palm Beach Post investigation found that Florida was restraining jailed children with heavy doses of potent antipsychotic drugs, medications that can turn troublemakers into "zombies" and cause serious health problems in kids. The stories also showed that a third of the psychiatrists hired by the state to evaluate and prescribe drugs for jailed children had taken speaker fees or gifts from the companies that make antipsychotic drugs. The stories also showed that Florida had hired psychiatrists to work in state juvenile jails even after the psychiatrists had used delinquents to defraud Medicaid, or had medicated children until the children overdosed and died.

Judges’ comments: Michael LaForgia used data analysis to show that children in juvenile-justice facilities were being kept docile through heavy doses of powerful antipsychotic drugs that can cause serious health problems. He also found that psychiatrists writing the prescriptions were in many cases paid “consultants” to drug manufacturing companies. The story made waves in Florida. The Department of Juvenile Justice assigned investigators to do an exhaustive review, and the Legislature is getting involved.

Place: Second Place

Prime Healthcare Services has a reputation for turning around financially troubled hospitals, reporting profits in the tens of millions. But a more troubling trend has emerged, according to this investigation by California Watch. Prime tends to take over hospitals and then dramatically boost the rate of Medicare patients being admitted for care. And the hospitals report that the Medicare patients they see are far sicker than those at neighboring hospitals. Does the chain attract the toughest cases, or are the hospitals exaggerating patient conditions for profit?

• Video: Tapping into Medicare's gold mine?
• Prime Healthcare reports outsized rates of unusual conditions
• In their own words: Turmoil, turnover among medical coders
• Graphic: More seniors with Medicare admitted after Prime Healthcare takeover

Judges’ comments: Wow. A tenacious reporter scoured public records and developed a sweeping review of how aggressive Medicare billing practices went undetected in a business-as-usual mode for a California hospital company. This exhausting effort serves as a grand model for news organizations in other states.

Place: Second Place

60 Minutes' nine-month investigation of counterfeit prescription drugs reveals how the dangerous and sometimes deadly fakes get into the nation's drug pipeline.

• The difficult fight against counterfeit drugs
• The fight against counterfeit drugs 

Judges’ comments: The scope of the story was impressive, including a trip to Peru for a police raid on a source of fake drugs, and interviews with FDA and U.S. immigration officials admitting they can’t screen out all the fake drugs and that even when they grab a shipment, they can’t arrest anyone; all they can do is send the pills back. This story tells a chilling tale that will make viewers look askance at their pill bottles. After it aired, Congress held hearings and the FDA drew up a new plan to monitor safety of imported drugs.  

Place: First Place

An ongoing investigation in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that alcohol wipes, sterile and nonsterile, can be dangerously contaminated, and federal regulators were not adequately protecting the public. When there are recalls, the public does not know because of lax communications and weak tools for regulators. Over the course of nine months, the Journal Sentinel found that, for a decade, a Wisconsin company routinely violated federal rules for making sterile products, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took little action. The contaminated wipes surfaced as the suspected culprit behind numerous illnesses and deaths in hospitals in several states. Among other findings, the newspaper found that there are several thousand drug and device makers that have not been inspected by the FDA in at least five years and hundreds have not seen an FDA inspector in 10 years or more.

Judges’ comments: In this comprehensive examination of a serious health threat, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel uncovered an equally significant danger posed by the breakdown of the government agencies that are supposed to be protecting us. While the FOI effort alone could constitute a first-place award, the reporting was humanized and made intensely relevant when the writers introduced us to the Kothari family's loss. Overall, this effort exemplifies best practices in multimedia storytelling, with graphics, compelling photos and riveting video. This will become a hallmark for how to accomplish public service reporting.

Place: Third Place

Where once they died young, most of the 1 percent of children born with congenital heart defects in the western world now survive to adulthood and need to be followed long term. But the majority falls off the radar when they become young adults, in part due to a lack of doctors skilled in adult congenital heart disease. This will have devastating consequences for these young adults, many of whom will not get the care they need. As a result, many will suffer unecessarily or even die prematurely.

Judges’ comments: This was an interesting, well-reported story about how congenital heart disease patients are falling through the system as adults. It identifies the need to provide these patients with more coordinated care and perhaps even develop a new cardiac specialty devoted to their care.

Place: Second Place

Hospital-based skilled nursing facilities have been on the decline since CMS changed its payment rules. Hospitals have always argued that this is because CMS isn't paying enough, so the units are money losers. But is that really true? Evidence suggests that these units, which operate more and more as mini-hospitals as patients leave hospital beds quicker and sicker, support themselves just fine. But because they can't support the rest of the hospital, they are being targeted for cuts – and patients are suffering for it.

Judges’ comments: Coverage of long-term care usually focuses on the aging of baby boomers or their parents' situation. This was a fresh perspective. The reporter thoroughly explained how skilled nursing facilities play a crucial role, and how a nationwide trend of closures endangers the health of many at-risk patients.

Place: First Place

This three-part series examines a few of the kinds of security risks facing modern hospitals and some of the latest countermeasures. Risks included attacks on clinicians and building fires, while security measures ran the gamut from security cameras to data analysis.

Judges’ comments: This took on a too-rarely-covered topic: criminal hazards in the places where workers should be safest, medical care facilities. We were impressed with the quality of the writing, editing and lively packaging of this sweeping series.

Place: Honorable Mention

This project examined the seeming contradictions in Medicare's kidney transplant program and its effects on patients' lives. More than 144,000 kidney transplant patients nationally have seen the Medicare benefit for drugs they will need throughout their lifetimes expire. The drugs, known as immunosuppressives, allow the body to accept the transplanted organ – at a cost of $17,000 year. But Medicare pays for the drugs for only 36 months, leaving transplant patients in a desperate scramble. Meanwhile, policymakers have chosen to provide kidney patients a lifetime of dialysis treatments, which funnels them to part-time lives in a dialysis chair and leaves taxpayers with a $71,000 annual Medicare tab for each patient – four times the expense of the anti-rejection drugs. Reversing the policy has been vigorously opposed by the influential dialysis industry.

Judges’ comments: A powerful and jarring account of health care policy gone bad. It's worth noting that a small paper, the Ventura County Star, went after the largest private employer in the county, Amgen, which is also the nation's second-biggest drug lobbyist in Congress. The first-hand accounts of kidney patients are riveting. This clear and persuasive work evokes outrage over the needless suffering and death of kidney transplant patients who lose government coverage for their expensive and essential anti-rejection drugs.

• Multimedia: Kidney transplant patients face a desperate scramble  
• Editorial: Wasting taxpayer dollars, ruining lives  
• Woman featured in kidney story dies
• BLOG: To know Sheryl Glatt and Kidney Disease

Place: Honorable Mention

Prevention reports that women are charged as much as 84 percent more than men for health insurance – or turned down outright – simply for being women, and that discriminatory practice is alive and well and legal in 37 states, where 95 percent of companies take full advantage of it. Prevention delved into the roots of "gender rating" and the insurance companies' rationale: that women use more preventive health-care services. The practice is scheduled to be outlawed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act in 2014, but this piece showcased real women who had been charged unaffordable rates or flat-out denied coverage for reasons ranging from having given birth by Cesarean section to being a survivor of rape or domestic abuse to being proactive about controlling conditions such as fibromyalgia.

Judges’ comments: Outstanding research. Glaring flaw in health care coverage ... has been written about elsewhere, but this article nails it. This well-written investigative story …. brought new light to  an often overlooked policy issue that affects millions.

Place: Third Place

Reporter Hal Bernton returned from a 2009 embed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, with a basic question about a big element of life for ground troops: Are the soldiers carrying too much weight? Over and over again, he heard tales of back, shoulder, ankle and other injuries that were dogging the soldiers as they often went on patrols with 90, 100 or more pounds of gear. In long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, what type of toll could that weight take on soldier and Marines who deployed again and again? He set out to answer those questions in a cooperative effort with KUOW that found that Army and Marine leaders had long known that soldiers were overloaded but up until recently had done very little to lighten the load. The result has been an avalanche of injuries and long-term disablilties that will afflict many service members over their lifetimes and cost taxpayers billions in disability payments.

Judges’ comments: These articles crack wide open a disturbing and unexplored part of health care policy. The problem of American soldiers forced to carry outrageously heavy burdens, as described in this outstanding, nuanced work, cries out for policy attention and innovation.

Place: Second Place

Across America, toxic air pollution continues to punish communities 21 years after Congress amended the Clean Air Act in a push to curb the most hazardous of releases. This Center for Public Integrity/NPR investigative report exposed the regulatory failures that cause millions of Americans to continue breathing unsafe air. "Poisoned Places" publicly revealed the EPA's internal "watch list" of the nation's most troublesome air polluters – 400 facilities from Texas to Iowa, New York, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana. These refineries, steel mills, incinerators, cement kilns and pharmaceutical plants polluted communities with solvents that cause cancer, metals that cause brain damage. The project disclosed how rarely the EPA uses its biggest hammer in dealing with air polluters: criminal prosecution.

Judges’ comments: Amazing stuff.  The amount of work that went into this is commendable in these days of shrinking newsrooms. Top-quality journalism. We were impressed by the ambition and great commitment of the two news organizations to revealing major flaws in enforcement of the Clean Air Act and their human costs.

Place: First Place

A 40-year-old lawsuit decided in federal court in Milwaukee revolutionized mental health care in America. The story examines how the lawsuit set a new commitment standard for those with mental illness: that a person is an imminent danger to himself or others. That standard has proven to be tragically inadequate, a fact borne out by tragedies such as Virginia Tech and Tucson. The project examined how best to be sure those who need care are able to get care. The work exposes flaws, identifies shortcomings, holds the system accountable and points to solutions.

Judges’ comments: A tour-de-force of a medical issue that gets little attention. Exposes shortcomings in the mental health system in a compelling way. This submission showed the power of fine storytelling and narrative journalism to deepen understanding of a complex and topical health policy issue.

Place: Third Place

The children of Alameda County, Calif., have some of the worst teeth in the nation – a problem the surgeon general calls the "silent epidemic." It was documented in 2006, when a dental health assessment outlined the crisis in a study. KTVU discovered that the problem had actually gotten worse. This series looks at how bad the problem is, what contributed to it and what the community is doing about the crisis in the wake of heavy budget cuts in the state's health care programs.

Judges’ comments: This piece highlights an important problem, and in an engaging and effective way outlines the causes and potential solutions. It also draws parallels with larger problems in the United States – poor diet, a lack of access to care, and poor education about the need for healthy diets and better hygiene. It's an under-reported problem and yet the team showed a great deal of insight, and, moreover, accurately reported it.

Place: Second Place

Imagine recovering from major surgery or suffering from advanced cancer without any painkillers. That's the reality for patients in half the countries in the world, but unlike so many global health problems, this one is not about money or a lack of drugs. Morphine, the gold standard for medical pain treatment, is cheap and simple to make, and it's easy to distribute. The reporters traveled to Ukraine, Uganda and India to find out why so many patients needlessly suffer the torture of medical pain and to document the human toll of this hidden human rights crisis.

Judges’ comments: This piece was very, very effective. The reporter found people directly affected – tear-jerking footage of them, doctors trying to help, advocates, government officials and relatives. The problem is clearly outlined and there's accurate reporting of the barriers and potential solutions. It's a unique look at a problem not normally addressed in the context of an emerging nation such as India. This is a problem that affects Americans as well – access to painkillers in the context of the illegal drug trade.

Place: First Place

It's estimated that about 25 million adults in the United States have diabetes, a disease that's preventable in most cases. Diabetes is hitting hardest in communities of color, where access to health care and health choices can be limited by income, education and geography. This 54-minute radio broadcast and associated multimedia web page examines how three ethnic communities in California are dealing with diabetes and how culturally-based approaches to health care are lengthening and saving lives.

• Dealing with diabetes
• Part 1: Coping
• Part 2: Choosing
• Part 3: Teaching

Judges’ comments: This piece, it was immediately clear to the judges, was a standout. It's an unbelievably important issue and will affect a huge proportion of the U.S. population. It looks at a variety of communities and really makes human how hard it is to understand and cope with diabetes. It goes straight to the underlying problems and the costs. It is very well done. The radio medium is exploited to best effect, with numerous interviews; the writing and narrative is lively and engaging.

Place: Honorable Mention

Rau covers health care providers, including hospitals and hospices. These stories looked at trends that influence the cost and quality of health care providers and how efforts by the federal government may help or backfire. Many of the pieces were based on new data analyses. Two stories looked at new government penalties against hospitals with high re-admission rates and how places that treat many poor patients may end up being excessively punished for things beyond their control. Another story examined how efforts to judge and pay hospitals based on the views of their patients may penalize those places in large urban areas and those that treat extremely complex cases. A fourth story looked at how for-profit hospices are pushing up the costs of Medicare’s hospice benefit, in part because those hospitals were admitting patients who weren’t dying and keeping them for long periods of time.

• Medicare Prepares Rule To Penalize Hospitals With High Readmission Rates
• When TLC Doesn't Satisfy Patients, Elite Hospitals May Pay A Price
• Medicare Penalties For Readmissions Could Be A Tough Hit On Hospitals Serving The Poor
• Growing Hospice Care Costs Bring Concerns About Misuse

Judges’ comments: By pulling together government databases and other source materials, Jordan Rau presents an informed analysis of how efforts by the federal government to rein in health care costs may produce unintended effects.

Place: Third Place

Weisman covers the health care business beat in a state that has become a national laboratory for medical innovation and health policy. His coveraege includes news about the sale of the company that defined the Massachusetts biotech cluster, the affordability push by the state’s largest health insurer to the marketing of a new blockbuster drug and the plight of financially strained hospitals.

• Hospitals in Mass. feel fiscal squeeze, July 10, 2011
• Genyme deal survived a culture clash, Feb. 20, 2011
• Insurer battles identity crisis, March 20, 2011
• New Vertex ads focus on disease, not treatment, June 28, 2011

Judges’ comments: Robert Weisman writes with authority about the business aspects of health care in his coverage area. His reporting is strong and his writing is confident.

Place: Second Place

Tsouderos examined vaccination data from 5,500 Illinois public and private schools to find pockets of low vaccination rates in two types of schools: public ones serving low-income students and private ones serving wealthier students. She explained how one research paper cannot answer a scientific question and what happens when patients, scientists and physicians forget that. Tsouderos examined 12 years of funding at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, and found the center had spent $1.2 billion, some of it on research of dubious value and quality. One of her main findings was that there was a mismatch between the way the center interpreted studies on dietary supplements and the way it interpreted studies on “mind and body” therapies. That offered an opportunity to discuss the placebo effect, and the role of the placebo in studies.

Judges’ comments: In her four submitted pieces, Trine Tsouderos reports on how members of the public and, in some cases, medical practitioners don't follow evidence-based science in adopting health practices. She uses the medical literature and extensive sourcing to buttress her strong reporting.

Place: First Place

Armstrong reported on the booming business of pain treatment – a $300 billion market characterized in many places by high prices, aggressive marketing and bogus advances that have harmed some patients and fleeced others. In laser spine surgery, Armstrong found that one of the busiest back surgery centers in the country was owned by the surgeons who operate there and earned huge margins by charging premium prices for a procedure of dubious efficacy. Several patients, lured to the center by online ads, say they were hurt by the operation. In the story "Chiropractor Backing Romney" Armstrong revealed how pain clinics are profiting from treating car crash victims with a variety of expensive therapies that are of limited or no help to people in pain. One clinic operator has been so successful with this model that he travels in his own private jet and recently built a 30,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion.

• Laser Spine Surgery's Profits Beat Google's Amid Complaints
• Chiropractor Backing Romney Expands Empire on $23,000 Patients
• Epidurals Linked to Paralysis Seen With $300 Billion Pain Market
• Video: Scantily Clad Women, Cash Used in Pain Service Ads

Judges’ comments: This is a classic example of beat reporting. David Armstrong deconstructs the $300 billion pain management market and the medical entrepreneurs who are fueling its growth. He tells personal stories and also provides a look at a troubling big picture. This work is fair, important and a great service to readers.

Jonathan Lapook

This story profiled a New Orleans grandma with advanced Alzheimer's, her 50 year-old daughter with early onset, and her 30 year-old daughter, about to become pregnant and haunted by the question - should she get a gene test, and would she really want to know if she was its next victim?

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Accompanying Story

This story follows one man as he becomes the first person to test an artificial heart in a clinical trial as he searches for a suitable heart donor.

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In the months following Katrina, the devastation -- teamed with a culture that doesn't seek help for their anxieties -- led to mental health issues nearly doubling. Officials also saw a spike in alcohol and drug abuse as well as reports of domestic violence. The statistics following the oil spill are very similar. Mental health professionals have found their biggest challenge is finding a way to treat uncertainty. In PBS NewsHour's piece entitled "How is the Gulf Coast Mentally Coping with Devastation of Two Disasters?," Health Correspondent Betty Ann Bowser and Producer Bridget DeSimone present an in depth look at the toll Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill are taking on the mental health of Gulf residents.

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In June 2010, the former director of surgery at Australia's Bundaberg Base Hospital was convicted of manslaughter, in connection with the deaths of three patients. A fourth patient was found to have suffered grievous bodily harm. But that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Australian authorities had linked Dr. Jayat Patel to many more deaths, accusing him of hundreds of botched procedures, unnecessary operations, misdiagnoses and conducting surgeries he wasn't even qualified to perform. And perhaps most notably, he was accused of hiding his long history of similar complaints in the United States. He had been reprimanded, sued and accused of harming and carelessly killing patients long before he ever got to Australia. World's Untold Stories follows the long trail that took Dr. Jayant Patel from the operating room to an Australian prison cell.

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Jennifer Ashton

CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton spoke to Harry Smith about the effect of repeated concussions on both student and professional football players and what can be done to prevent permanent damage to the brain.

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To celebrate the release of her book, "The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight-Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You," CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton sat down with some typical teenagers from the New York area to give them the scoop on their health on everything from body image to contraception.

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Marilyn Werber Serafini

This story is about how The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could spur big changes in the way that physicians are organized and eliminate solo practices.

Elizabeth Svoboda & Patrick Perry

The article addressed breakthroughs in stem cell technology and explained why their research is worth keeping an eye on, including its impact in type 1 diabetes, bone fractures and cardiomyopathy. The reporters interviewed Dr. Zannos Grekos in person about his use of stem cells and how the experimental procedure helped an individual patient. The Saturday Evening Post also provided their readership basic information to provide a framework for the otherwise controversial field.

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Noelle Robbins

This article addresses a global public and environmental health issue that impacts millions around the world on a daily basis: the production and use of toilet paper. There are organizations that correlate the use of toilet paper with access to improved sanitation in developing countries. The consumption of toilet paper - whether manufactured from virgin pulp or recycled paper content - will be a continuing global need as population growth adds to the more than 2 billion world citizens currently estimated to be lacking access to sanitation.

See this story online.

David Whelan

This story examines chelation, a medial treatment that's purpose is to remove poisonous metals from patients such as ones who've been in industrial accidents or otherwise exposed. Yet the therapy has been promoted by some doctors to heart patients, autistic kids and just as a general detoxification therapy--without any medical evidence that it works.

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Katie Drummond; Additional credit Sophia Banay Moura and Ying Chu.

The Hunger Diaries expose a new and subtle type of eating disorder support: the "healthy living" community. This community of young female bloggers is led by a group known as the "big six." These six twenty-something professional women have hundreds of thousands of readers for their personal sites, where they post photos and descriptions of every meal they eat and share every nuance of their intense workouts. They run regular races, including marathons, or complete athletic feats like 100-mile bike races, despite recurring injuries. Though they present themselves as advocates for health and "balance," the bloggers' extreme approach to food and exercise is alarming.

See this story online.

Six months after the devastating earthquake, the PBS NewsHour's global health team returned to Haiti to highlight the country's on-going challenges, as well as the resilience of its people. One of the most urgent concerns for medical officials immediately after the quake was caring for the thousands who needed amputations. Six months later emergency care was largely over, but as NewsHour Producer Merrill Schwerin and Senior Correspondent Ray Suarez describe, a long journey of recovery was just beginning for many who lost limbs.

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Part 1
Part 2

Beatrice Politi

Energy drinks are a 5-billion dollar industry. They promise to charge you up, but are they safe? This investigation put energy drinks to the test and examined the emerging research around the drinks which suggests even low levels of caffeine can potentially lead to heart attacks. We also revealed the aggressive nature of marketing in this industry and the gaping holes in Health Canada's policy and enforcement.

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In the year of concussion awareness relating to professional sports and athlete injuries, the reporters went in-depth to explain concussion, separate fact from myth and show who's most at risk. The goal was to give parents, coaches and the athletes themselves valuable news they could use.

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One in ten Asian Americans have chronic hepatitis B, but few are aware of it. The disease can cause liver cancer which is rarely detected until it's too late. As many as 2 billion people worldwide may be infected, and yet there is little public awareness about hep B and not much media attention. The PBS NewsHour, as part of its commitment to global health reporting, delved into the large numbers of Asians in the Bay Area who have hep B.

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The story was part of an ongoing series "Where America Stands." The goal was to provide a look at the state of the science, without the politics, speak to the leaders in the field, while at the same time talk about the potential impact on patients.

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This series analyzed: who would get the Medicare rebate checks, why they were needed, and showed opposing perspectives as to whether this would help fix the Medicare issue; who the North Carolina state-run high-risk insurance pool would help and how it would work; and why dozens of North Carolina doctors were opting out of Medicare and not accepting new Medicare patients.

Lynne Friedmann

Pathologists, lab managers, administrators, and technologists are taking to heart lessons learned during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic as they prepare for the forthcoming 2010-11 influenza season in North America. Among those lessons: The need for better surveillance, improved rapid testing, enhanced molecular testing methods, and to invest in planning for the unexpected.

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Acting on a tip from inside the government, this story exposed the fact that the only office responsible for investigating fraud in federally funded research had been leaderless for more than a year. This important office was being neglected. As a result of this story, HHS finally advertised the job.

Hospital trustees are meant to represent their communities, yet most boards don't bear much of a resemblance to their patient base. This can diminish the trust patients have in the institution and hinder the board's decision-making and planning. This story uses data and interviews to explain the value of trustees that represent minority groups and offers tips on ways to recruit them.

The Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938 and the Amendments of 1962 charged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with approving drugs that are safe and effective. Many medications being sold before the Act are still available, although unapproved. One, of these unapproved medications, colchicine, had been available for years and used in the treatment of for acute gout and Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) among others. In June of 2006, the FDA and its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) undertook the Unapproved Drugs Initiative to bring more medications into compliance. Under the provisions of the Act the FDA in July of 2009, awarded URL Pharma of Philadelphia approval to market a form of colchicine for acute gout and Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF). They were given three-year marketing exclusivity for gout and a 7-year term for FMF as an orphan drug. As a result of the exclusivity, the branded version called Colcrys ® sells for about $5.00 a tablet or roughly 50 times the price of the unapproved version. In addition, all other versions of colchicine being marketed were pulled off the market, leaving Colcrys as the only available option. The article reported on the firestorm of protest from the Rheumatologists and patients using colchicine who were now required to pay these higher prices. It looked into the UDI program, what were the insurance implications, the views of URL on the controversy, what programs were put in place by URL and others to help patients pay the higher prices, and the legal underpinnings behind the approval and subsequent removal of other forms of colchicine from the market.

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Joanne Che, Martha McPhee, Judith Newman, Gale Konop Baker and Carmen Peleaz

The package, which appeared on the heels of the heated debate over new mammogram guidelines, explored the multitude of ways women, men, and society in general have viewed breasts over the centuries, with the goal of putting the revised mammogram controversy into perspective. It pulled from sociology, psychology, history, law and pop culture.

Sophia Banay Moura; Additional credit: Ying Chu and Anne Fulenwider

The Savvy Girl's Guide to Contraception condenses countless doctor interviews and academic reports into a comprehensive but fun-to-read guide to modern birth control. The Big Bang takes on female sexual pleasure in the wake of the controversy around Flibanserin, or "female Viagra."

Lane DeGregory; Additional credit: Suzanne Riss

When the Rolling Stones sang about "mother's little helper" in 1967, the anti-anxiety drug Valium had just hit the market: "And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day." Today, Xanax and cabernet are the new Valium, and working moms increasingly depend on them to cope with mounting stresses. The rise is unmistakable: Alcohol abuse among women 30 to 44 has doubled over the past decade, while prescription drug abuse has quadrupled.

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Mark Fuerst

Bobby Brown was not only a great ballplayer and role model, but left his mark on the game even after he hung up his cleats when he banned Minor League players from using smokeless tobacco as President of the American League. Just as this cover story was going to press, Major League Baseball announced it would consider a smokeless tobacco ban when players' contracts are renegotiated this year. Thanks to Brown, ballplayers and the youngsters who idolize them no longer think baseball and tobacco go together like peanut butter and jelly.

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Joshua Kor; Additional credit Roane Carey

After Sergeant Chuck Luther was seriously wounded by mortar fire while serving in Iraq, doctors pressed him to sign fraudulent documents saying his blindness was caused by a pre-existing condition, making him ineligible for disability and medical benefits. When Luther refused to sign, Army doctors put him in a closet and held him there for over a month, with armed guards enforcing sleeping deprivation -- keeping the lights on all night, blasting heavy metal music at him all through the night.

When Luther tried to escape, he was pinned down, injected with sleeping medication and dragged back to the closet. Finally, after over a month, the sergeant was willing to sign anything -- and he did, signing his name to discharge documents saying he had a pre-existing illness.

Luther's case was by no means an isolated incident. Military doctors have pressed thousands of other soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan into signing phony discharge papers for a "pre-existing" condition, saving the military billions of dollars in disability and medical benefits.

See this story online.

Jason Roberson

Baylor Health Care System, a Dallas-based not-for-profit hospital system, is working to become an accountable care organization by 2015. Reaching that goal will not be easy. Like others exploring ACOs, Baylor must contend with decades-old federal and state laws once written to protect patients but now outdated for new-age payment models. Internally Baylor still must manage an imminent cultural shock of physicians' wages being determined by stacks of quality data.

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Michael Schroeder

One in 50 health care providers are practicing without a license. The majority of Angie's List members -- 91 percent -- who took our online poll say it's crucial their providers be licensed, yet half never check. Those who practice without a license either never had one, had it suspended or revoked or allowed it to lapse. While the latter is most common, consumer experts recommend not taking a health care provider's word. One report reveals two-thirds of doctors who made 10 or more malpractice payments between 1990 and 2005 faced no serious consequences, such as losing their license. Others just went to another state to practice.

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Michael Schroeder; Additional credit Kristy Broering and Sue Wiltz

Twenty percent, or roughly 60 million people, sleep fewer than six hours a night, up from 12 percent in 1998. Lack of sleep is attributed to 100,000 car accidents and 1,500 deaths on the road each year, but researchers say you're also at increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes or stroke if you regularly get less than seven to nine hours a night.

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Jordan Lite

Accumulating research demonstrates that information users post on social-networking sites accurately reflects their real-life behaviors, such as sexual activity and possibly mood, violence, alcohol and substance abuse. The findings raise ethical dilemmas about whether and how that information should be utilized by health-care providers.

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Rhonda Koulermos

Richard Groat, executive at a TV station in Columbus, Ohio, developed early-onset Alzheimer's at age 52. His wife Gloria served as his primary caregiver while running a small business and caring for their aging parents. This is the story of their 16-year journey with Alzheimer's.

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Rebecca Adams

This article examined three central questions of comparative effectiveness research for the health care debate: How will the results factor in coverage decisions by insurance companies and government health programs?, how will the results of broad-based studies of large populations sort with the movement toward personalized medicine?, and will doctors and patients, and the political establishment, accept the research?

Peter Aldhous, Jim Giles & Brad Stenger

They are billed as "healthcare professionals who spend years building expertise in their fields." Using materials grounded in science, they educate their peers in the risks and benefits of drugs. This is how Pfizer, the pharmaceuticals giant, describes the experts it hires to lead forums in which doctors are lectured on the use of its products. Research found that some of Pfizer's experts have been disciplined by state medical boards for deficiencies in patient care, while others have been reprimanded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for how they conducted drug research trials. These findings added to a growing controversy surrounding the pharmaceutical industry's efforts to market drugs by influencing patterns of prescribing.

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This story examined and analyzed the compensation of more than 100 CEOs of not-for-profit hospitals in California. The total average compensation was more than $730,000 a year, raising questions as to whether pay was excessive and whether the institutions were providing enough charity care to the surrounding communities.

This Special Report looks at the potential and current use of fraud-fighting technologies such as predictive modeling and analytical software by the Medicare program to root out Medicare billing fraud and stop payment before claims are filed. Health care fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs is a multi-billion dollar a year problem and James Swann spoke with industry experts about why such techniques are important, what is being used today by the Department of Health and Human Services, what can be expected in the future, and outlines congressional interest in the matter.

Respiratory care professionals are well-versed in ventilator care in the acute setting, but few are fully aware of the serious challenges that families of children who need long-term mechanical ventilation face once they transition to home care. This article describes the clinical, emotional, and logistical difficulties of home care and gives dramatic personal examples of life-threatening situations that families have encountered. More families than ever before must confront these issues as technological advances allow more medically complex infants to survive. It offers possible solutions that include thorough patient education and professional training. It also describes a legislative initiative that would empower respiratory therapists to contribute their unique combination of knowledge, technical skills, and compassion to fill significant gaps in skilled staffing in the home care setting.

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A review of state laws and regulations by the Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 12 states and the District of Columbia do not require medical X-ray operators to be credentialed or to meet specific competency standards. Of the 38 states that do license or accredit technologists, requirements vary greatly - from a mere 12 hours of operator training to a two-year accredited radiography program. The Workshop's survey also found that some states do not conduct routine inspections of medical imaging machines. The lack of standardization increases a patient's risk of misdiagnosis and excess exposure to radiation, at a time when regulators struggle to keep up with new types of imaging equipment.

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This article provides a discussion of five best practices for the successful employment of physicians: 1) maintain the culture of private practice, 2) involve physicians in governance, 3) productivity-based compensation, 4) dedicated management team and 5) clear and transparent objectives.

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For years, "live case demonstrations" have been signature features of certain medical meetings. In a live-case, a real-live patients, with real, often life-threatening disease, undergo procedures with the cameras rolling, a remote panel of expert 'moderators' asking questions of the operators or providing suggestions, and an audience of physicians, sometimes thousands, watching everything unfold in real time. In recent years, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) has banned live cases from its meetings, and the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) issued a statement prohibiting live case broadcasts to the general public and discouraging the use of live demonstrations to audiences of any kind when taped cases could be used instead. By contrast, interventional cardiology meetings are relying even more heavily on what I call the "technological, logistical, and medical wizardry" that are live-case demos and for the first time have issued a set of controversial guidelines. This story explore the pros and cons of live-case demos.

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"Homeless with Cancer" reveals stories about living with a life-threatening disease on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. The reporter sought to give voice to men and women in Birmingham who find themselves facing yet one more challenge with far fewer resources than most of us have within our reach. The result was a year-long immersion in a community few people are aware of.

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A review of state laws and regulations by the Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 12 states and the District of Columbia do not require medical X-ray operators to be credentialed or to meet specific competency standards. Of the 38 states that do license or accredit technologists, requirements vary greatly - from a mere 12 hours of operator training to a two-year accredited radiography program. The Workshop's survey also found that some states do not conduct routine inspections of medical imaging machines. The lack of standardization increases a patient's risk of misdiagnosis and excess exposure to radiation, at a time when regulators struggle to keep up with new types of imaging equipment.

See the story on the web.

At a time of national concern over health care costs, hospitals are becoming marketplace powerhouses that dictate higher prices to insurers and employers. This phenomenon is especially evident in northern California. Prominent hospitals and networks, especially those in the San Francisco Bay Area, can keep raising prices beyond inflation because their sizes or reputations give them clout in negotiating rates with insurers, researchers say. Yet high prices don't always equate with superior care. Through new construction and expanding its doctors' groups, Sutter Health is enhancing its position as one of the most dominant hospital systems in California. In addition, Sutter is further ahead of many competitors in fashioning itself into a so-called accountable care organization, responsible for coordinating care between hospitals, specialists and primary doctors. KHN extensively analyzed California hospital prices and interviewed dozens of experts and hospital executives to illustrate the impact of Sutter Health, the priciest chain. Working with public radio station KQED, KHN had several text stories, photos, a radio story and an interactive chart that compared hospital prices and quality by hospital system, location and year.

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When the ground shook in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12, the magnitude-7 earthquake left behind up to 4,000 instant amputees in a land where there's little mercy for disability. The tragedy there highlighted a grim global reality: In the United States and around the world, the number of amputees is rising dramatically, driven by war, disease and natural disaster. In the iterative blog Haiti's Amputees: Building A Life Worth Living, a team of msnbc.com journalists - medical reporter JoNel Aleccia and multimedia producers John Brecher and Carissa Ray - explored a unique community forged out of tragedy in the rural heart of Haiti.

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The Affordable Care Act "the new law that overhauls the way health insurance is provided in the U.S." has surfaced as an issue in the Kansas gubernatorial race. Republican nominee Sam Brownback has been critical of the plan, but the documentation he uses to support his position has come under fire.

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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

This piece investigates why an ever-increasing number of Kansas children are being prescribed psychotropic medications intended for adults.

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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Hospitals are reporting sharp increases in uncompensated care, and some report that the stereotype of uncompensated care patients being mostly homeless no longer applies. A more accurate description would be "A 30- or 35-year-old without health insurance who two months ago worked at Sprint," according to a Kansas City hospital official. This two-story package explores the trend in uncompensated care, and focuses on one patient who fits that new description.

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Part 1
Part 2

Sandra Fryhofe, M.D., discusses legalizing medical marijuana from a historical, pharmacological and legal perspective.

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Sandra Fryhofer, M.D., addresses a recent study on NSAIDs and cardiovascular risk, she discusses the efficacy of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation, and reports on a study that links nuts to cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

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Jennifer Wolff Perrine; Additional credit: Lucy S. Danziger, Sara Austin

Half of all Americans, at some point in their lives, will experience a life-altering trauma -- a debilitating injury, a tragic loss, a brush with death. How one addresses a tragedy can make an enormous difference in how one recovers. Researchers now describe the aftermath of such events as "post-traumatic growth," and say that the majority of people who live through such traumas actually report that their lives become richer and more meaningful. Major findings include that the most common form of life-altering incidents - traffic accidents - actually injures more women than men every year. Two-thirds of people who live through a traumatic event report that their lives are actually improved by the experience.

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Fernanda Moore; Additional credit: Kristen Dold and Sascha de Gersdorff.

This story delves into the rising rates of medical misdiagnoses, statistics that come at frightening costs: Up to 40 percent of patients are misdiagnosed every year and, of those, some 100,000 will die as a direct result. In "Survive Your Doctor," Fernanda Moore investigates why young women are at particular risk and examines how a perfect storm of fixable factors -- outdated medical school teaching, lazy patients, a focus on specialists, doctor fatigue -- is endangering their lives. Through a series of anecdotes and analysis, Moore shows readers how to be their own health advocates. A series of four service sidebars hits home the story's overall message: The smartest patients enter the exam room prepared.

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Gretchen Voss; Additional credit: Lisa Bain

In late 2009, Women's Health identified and began reporting on a disturbing sexual health trend: the reemergence and rise of casual, unprotected sex among young adults. The carefree, "don't' ask, don't tell" attitude seemed particularly jarring in light of the statistics -- STD rates were skyrocketing (thanks, in part, to this ill-advised blasé behavior), with human papillomavirus (HPV), gonorrhea, and herpes infections at modern highs. "I don't ask questions that I don't want to know the answer to," says one of the sources interviewed for the piece. By digging into psychology, biology, and social norms, Voss paints a clear, crucial picture of a major health threat, and arms women with what they need to know to stay safe.

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Gretchen Voss; Additional credit: Lisa Bain

In "How Stress Messes With Memory," Gretchen Voss explains how tension tampers with the inner workings of the brain, in a way that's both intricately riveting and easy to understand. The article delves into research proving that gender plays a major role in how people deal with pressure -- groundbreaking, up-to-the minute information that even many neuroscientists didn't know at the time the article was reported. Inventive graphic sidebars enhance the overall service, with clear strategies for how to better remember things when your nerves are jangled (even all those computer passwords!), and ways to find the sweet spot between mellow and meltdown when our brains are able function at optimum capacity.

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Bob Drury; Additional credit: Leah Flickinger

The U.S. Defense Department specifically prohibits women from direct combat missions. But in the Iraq and Afghanistan combat zones, there are no front lines, and as Bob Drury writes in Invisible Soldiers, "the piece of ground you occupy can, at any moment, turn into a battlefield." Thus for the first time in U.S. history, women soldiers are facing the same dangers as men -- but unlike their male counterparts, they come home to a society that can't comprehend what they've been through and an outdated veterans' support system that's scrambling to meet their needs. With vivid scenes and scathing personal stories from three women who served, this article describes the alarming affects of post-traumatic stress disorder on female soldiers (and how it's been under-studied by the military). It also discusses serious mental-health issues and sexual trauma.

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Susan Crandell, Ginny Graves, and Emily G. W. Chau and Julie Bain

In Part 1 of the series, top dermatologists helped readers learn the signs of basal cell, squamous cell and melanoma skin cancers, what the lesions look like and what the latest treatments are. In Part 2, experts talk about what's so seductive about the perfect tan even though it's dangerous. They acknowledged the pleasure factor and body-image aspects of tanning, but also provided good reasons why you should let it go, plus advice on how to do that. In Part 3 the focus was on prevention, with advice on how to examine your own skin between yearly appointments with your dermatologist. The piece used a model's body and included tips sprinkled over the appropriate body parts. It also showed how to spot a pre-cancer.

Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Shellmann; Additional credit: Cindi Leive

This piece shows a little-known yet explosive corner of the practice: the growing phenomenon of military wives serving as surrogate mothers. (Even though active-duty armed forces members are less than one percent of the U.S. population, military wives constitute roughly 19 percent of all surrogate moms, according to one survey.) And as "The Most Wanted Surrogates in the World" revealed, such mothers are hotly in demand. While civilian insurance companies generally don't cover surrogate births, the taxpayer-funded insurance provided to all military families does often pay for surrogacy -- making military wives a low-cost alternative for would-be parents.

See this story online.

Lorenzo Benet; Additional credit: Nancy Jeffrey

If there is a single heartbreaking reminder of the costs of war, it lies in the burned and maimed faces of the young men and women injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2007 Dr. Timothy Miller, a prominent plastic surgeon at UCLA Medical Center, has devoted his skills to helping these soldiers heal, physically and emotionally, by restoring their faces -- often feature by feature over multiple surgeries. As co-founder of the nonprofit Operation Mend, Dr. Miller and his team have performed some 150 operations on more than 30 wounded warriors, with impressive results that his patients say helped them start their lives anew.

Amanda Williamson; Additional credit: Nancy Jeffrey, Lorenzo Benet

How do adolescents with autism manage in high school, where youngsters can be subject to ridicule and exclusion for the most trivial of reasons? That question led us to Joey Hersholt, a 17-year-old California teen with mild autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, enrolled by his parents in a promising program at UCLA. Its goal: To teach teens with autism the building blocks of friendship. Following Joey and his family through four-months of classes, reporter Lorenzo Benet and photographer David Butow gained unusual access to the hopes, dreams and struggles of a boy who is different -- and chronicled his gradual social awakening.

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Linda Marsa

Many Americans anxious and confused when the Affordable Care Act -- President Barack Obama's health care reform law -- was enacted in March 2010. This story explained the major implications of the law so that Family Circle readers could learn what the changes mean for them and their families.

Marina Khidekel; Additional credit: Cindi Leive, Wendy Naugle.

"I Sued My Ex for Giving Me an STD -- and I Won" tells the story of a young woman, Karly Rossiter, who filed a groundbreaking and highly controversial civil lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend for infecting her with human papillomavirus. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. This piece raised important questions about trust, integrity, personal responsibility and how far women should go to protect their sexual health. Rossiter took her case all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court, which upheld that her ex Alan Evans, a dentist, had been negligent and acted in willful and wanton disregard for her health. Evans was ordered to pay Rossiter $1.5 million in damages -- one of the largest known monetary awards in an STD case.

See this story on the web. 

Jennifer Wolff Perrine; Additional Credit: Lucy S. Danziger and Sara Austin

"This woman has a secret" details the vastness of the infertility industry and explains the consequences of its ongoing secrecy: without openness, there is little financial or political support for research that can improve couples' chances of conception, and a lack of emotional support structures that can salve the consequences of an expensive and emotionally wrenching medical process. Research for the story found 1.1 million American women undergo fertility treatment each year, and 12 percent of couples will experience fertility problems. Insurance companies refuse to cover infertility, classifying as an elective procedure akin to cosmetic surgery. Fifty-seven percent of in vitro fertilization cycles fail. Pregnancy rates at one clinic increased after several mind/body sessions helped ease depression and anxiety.

See this story on the web.

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy; Additional credit: Lucy S. Danziger and Sara Austin

Kirby Brown, a healthy, athletic, 41-year-old woman, turned to self-help guru James Arthur Ray to help her find spiritual, financial and relationship fulfillment. Instead, she--and two other followers--wound up dying during a deliberately intense sweat lodge ceremony at a Ray retreat in October 2009. "When Self-Help Harms" explores the events that led to Brown's frightening death, and exposes the follies of the unregulated, unfettered self-help industry, where a charismatic leader like Ray can make millions off the faith of his followers, with increasingly little regard to their mental or physical well-being.

See this story online.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner; Additional credit: Lucy S. Danziger, Sara Austin

Following the author's first childbirth delivery, which was life-threatening and psychically traumatic, she explored the line between holistic and medical births in preparation for my second delivery. She wanted to know how much control she could have over the birth of her child  --  how much any mothers can have  --  and how much to cede to my caregivers and to fate. Research found extremists on both ends of the spectrum  --  vigilant homebirthers and women who were grateful for the technology that allowed them a safe and healthy delivery.

See this story on the web.

Molly Triffin

In the piece, Cosmo gives readers an insider look at the female-unfriendly field of cosmetogynecology. It explains the type of cosmetic (and often totally medically unnecessary) procedures doctors perform, like tightening the walls of the vagina or shortening the labia and/or skin around the clitoris. 

Cheryl Platzman Weinstock

This story also pulls together new research about factors influencing the rise of depression in menopausal and perimenopausal women's age brackets, including a cultural shift in midlife women reflecting on their life and, if that doesn't measure up to some standard, they feel like they failed. Also, the extent to which genetics and other temporary health issues, such as postpartum depression, can predispose someone to midlife depression is evaluated. Most importantly, many midlife women don't realize they're depressed because many symptoms of menopause and depression look and feel the same and can confuse women. This story gives readers the tools to help distinguish between the two and get the medical attention that could change their life.

See this story on the web.

Marina Khidekel; Additional credit: Cindi Leive, Wendy Naugle

This story introduced readers to the new and little-reported phenomenon of kidney transplant chains. It tells the story of Christina Do, a young woman who decided to donate a kidney to a complete stranger and ended up saving 11 people's lives -- and of the 22 people whose lives she touched forever. Christina Do sparked the longest kidney chain ever started by a woman and the second longest ever at the time the March 2010 issue went to press.

See this story on the web. 

Katharine Davis Fishman

The article reports on whether and when bisphosphonates are safe to take. It describes the author's experience, explains osteoporosis (and osteopenia) for the lay reader and tells what bispohosphonates do to treat it, reports on the history of the drugs and their approval by the FDA, reports on studies that have been done on bisphosphonates and their risks, and in two sidebars explains the FRAX test and medicines now in the pipeline. It concludes that bisphosphonates should be used for osteoporosis, not osteopenia, unless the patient's FRAX score indicates high 10-year-risk of hip and or other osteoporotic fractures, and that if she then takes the bisphosphonates she should be checked at 3 to 5 years to determine whether she still needs it.

See this story on the web. 

This story explores LDL cholesterol, and points out that LDL cholesterol is actually an umbrella term for 11 different subtypes. Standard cholesterol blood tests do not distinguish between these subtypes, yet according to a series of recent findings, only three of these subtypes are associated with heart disease. This has profound implications for cholesterol control and diet. For instance, we are told to restrict our intake of saturated fat, advice which generally leads us to eat more carbohydrates. Yet while saturated fat from dairy and very likely red meat increases LDL, it essentially only increases the 8 largely benign forms of LDL. Conversely, carbohydrates in the diet increase the three forms which are dangerous, and lowers good cholesterol. Thus, "healthy eating" in the form of low fat foods that are comprised largely of carbohydrates, increases the risk of developing heart disease. Moreover, we are medicating millions of Americans with cholesterol reducing drugs despite the likelihood that many of them only have elevated forms of LDL that are benign.

See this story on the web.

Kevin Cook

"Sleep Is a Battlefield" is an account of the latest research and findings in sleep science, from military and law-enforcement applications to news to help readers sleep better.

Tim Darragh

Based on a vague tip, Darragh, who was assigned the Business of Healthcare beat in August, began probing reports of a CMS investigation at Lehigh Valley Hospital. He found that the hospital was under fire for arming its security guards with Tasers. They used the weapons at least four times on patients. The hospital decided to disarm its security workers, but the news prompted an uproar among readers and health professionals.

See this story on the web. 

Julia Hunter; Additional credit: Elizabeth Lawyer, Jeffrey Aaron

After several drug companies made their first disclosures of the physicians on their payrolls -- many required to do so following government settlements -- 17 medical professional practicing locally showed up on the lists. Of the regional doctors, a physician speaking on Attention Deficit Disorder topped the list, bringing in $32,600 in a nine-month span. Doctors argued the practice was necessary, while opponents argued it created a conflict of interest.

Jennifer M Molin, Chip Hunt

The Healthy State Collaborative Local Journalism Center (LJC) is a two year project aimed at strengthening collaboration among six public broadcasting stations geographically centered in Florida. The partnership provides the opportunity to super serve the residents of this region with an intense journalistic commitment to the unifying topic of health care.

The primary goal of the Healthy State Collaborative is to grow the collective audience through the creation of high quality journalism locally delivered through multiple platforms. Significant attention will be directed to engaging a younger, well-educated audience (ages 20-45) in addition to the core public radio audience (ages 45-65) through compelling content and community engagement opportunities that include audio, video, text, photos, blogs, social networking, dynamic syndication, and mobile applications.

See this website.

Julia Hunter

Twenty-five babies in the region had died in the last five years unnecessarily. Although, historically, these type of deaths would have been attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, a local medical examiner's scrutiny revealed that's actually almost never the case.

See this story on the web.

Julia Hunter

Three doctors in the local coverage area had been hired as spokesmen for national pharmaceutical companies despite previous black marks on their records. The doctors and their employers seemed unconcerned, asserting this wasn't an issue, even though one of the doctors was accused of fondling himself in front of a patient. Drug companies tout that they hire the best of the best, but these findings, show this is a questionable statement.

See this story on the web.

Jennifer Gordon

Thirty years ago, St. Joseph had two hospitals but has since gone down to only one. This article explores why St. Joseph decided to consolidate its medical facilities and the challenges a new hospital would have if it tried to come into the community. Ag new hospital would lower insurance premiums for residents but could not make enough of a profit off of a blue-collar, Medicare-heavy community.

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Erin Carlyle

Dan Buettner spent years exploring the world's "Blue Zones" -- hotspots of longevity, from Okinawa, Japan, to Nicoya, Costa Rica -- where people live to be 100 at astonishing rates. Now he's distilled the wisdom of these cultures into nine ways to prolong your life, spelled out in his best-selling book, "Blue Zones." But Buettner didn't stop there. His next step was to get an entire community to adopt the principles. Albert Lea, Minnesota, is the first intentionally created Blue Zone.

See this story on the web.

Chris Vogel

This story reveals that Houston residents are victim to industrial polluters located in residential areas and that state and local regulators routinely fail to protect citizens, instead leaving people with no recourse other than to seek protection from the courts on their own dime, effectively ensuring that most residents never receive relief from environmental and health hazards. Houston is unique in that the city does not have zoning laws, meaning that a strip club, convenience store or industrial plant is allowed to set up shop in residential neighborhoods. Vogel's story examines several examples of how citizens have tried to safeguard themselves and get the polluters to move from their neighborhood  --  mostly in vain.

See this story on the web.

Deborah Schoch and Danielle E. Gaines

The foreclosure of a home is more than a financial transaction. It also is a hidden human drama, with potentially devastating psychological consequences for those involved. For Ethelda Lopez, it ended her lifelong dream of a home to retire in. Her story is one of literally thousands in Merced County, which with 8,389 filings ranked first in California for foreclosures in 2009, and sixth among counties nationwide. Psychological problems, including anxiety, sleeplessness and depression, wreaked havoc during the foreclosure crisis.

See this story on the web.

Emily Bazar, Julie Lynem

Even in idyllic San Luis Obispo County, on California's Central Coast, the economic crisis has hit families hard, and children especially hard. As families become unmoored, their kids act up in school and at home, self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, and suffer mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, institutions that serve families  --  schools, county agencies, churches and nonprofits  --  are grappling with budget cuts and unprecedented demand. This is what an 11-week partnership between the Center and the San Luis Obispo Tribune News uncovered.

See this story on the web.

John Gonzales and Tom Kisen

The nation's 75 million baby boomers are certainly not immune from the crisis in health care, and even those in relatively rich Ventura County are feeling the pressure of spiraling costs of both medical procedures and insurance. That is, if they still have insurance. Many Ventura County middle-class baby boomers have been pummeled by the economy, with jobs lost and health insurance disappeared, and the safety net they paid into during better times not designed to help them.

See this story on the web.

Jim Doyle

"Drugmaker's quick slide from the top" is a blow-by-blow account of KV Pharmaceutical Co. downfall, including its checkered history, family ownership interests and squabbles, executives' key mistakes, and a corporate ethic gone awry. "Hospitals tangled in owners' troubles" is an investigative story of a failing St. Louis area hospital, a rare glimpse into the hidden financial world of distressed hospital chains and a scandal involving the potential loss of $500 million in investor funds. "Area hospitals battle infections" is a close examination of the infection rates (surgical site and central line) of two dozen hospitals in the St. Louis area, based on five years of data. "Cases shed light on drug firm's tactics" offers the story-behind-the-story of Forest Laboratories' criminal guilty plea that resulted from its aggressive marketing of unapproved antidepressants that were prescribed by pediatricians to children.

Megan Ogilvie

In "Homeless and pregnant," Ogilvie writes about the people who care for society's most downtrodden and desperate after earning the trust of her sources. The story chronicles the Homeless At-Risk Prenatal Program, the only one of its kind in North America. For the story, "A young abortion doctor's dilemma," Ogilvie wanted to find out who were the young doctors of today taking up medicine's most controversial surgery. It took six months to research and write the story because so few doctors at first would speak to her about abortion training and practice. "An uncommon gift," tells readers about the people who agree to take part in transplant's most ethically precarious surgery. Toronto General Hospital has the only program in North America that allows people to donate half of their liver to a stranger. The story took a year to complete.

Guy Boulton

Six stories comprise this series that covers the Republican health care proposal, health insurance providers, bad hospital debt and more.

"GOP health plan takes small steps"
"Insurers alone can't be blamed for rates, economists say"
"Health care tries to figure out what works best"
"Research key in slowing health care spending"
"Providers of health care in recovery"
"No big increase in health charity with job losses"

Jordan Rau's pair of stories on surging California hospital prices explores the national discussion of rising health care spending. He spent weeks analyzing hospital data compiled by state regulators and interviewed a broad range of experts, hospital executives, employers and others. The stories reached state and national audiences when they were picked up by the Bay Area News Group chain of newspapers, KQED radio and NPR. In another story, Rau reported evidence that areas of the country widely praised for restraining medical spending were in fact becoming more expensive. This story cast doubt on the widely-held belief that lower-priced areas could be models for the rest of the country. In addition, Rau used his data-gathering skills to identify a significant problem among people who have insurance: balance billing. Then, he crafted a poignant story about one family facing the burdens balance billing imposes.

"California Hospitals: Prices Rising Rapidly, But Quality Varies"
"As Hospital System Expands, Patient Advocates Worry"
"Medical Spending Spiking In Once Thrifty Areas"
"The Price They Paid"

Jason Kane, Betty Ann Bowser, Bridget DeSimone

The PBS NewsHour's Health Beat explores some of the main health issues facing our country today: insurance coverage, food sources and mental health. Formerly financially nimble communities now lack goods and services for their residents, resulting in obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Bowser and DeSimone also went to Massachusetts to see what lessons that state could offer for the national debate on health care. Finally, a segment from New Orleans: After Hurricane Katrina, life for citizens in the Gulf became about tending to basic needs: food, shelter and the next paycheck. Processing heartache, frustration and the enormity of devastation would have to wait. Then the BP oil spill dealt Gulf residents another blow. These two catastrophes created a climate for depression and domestic violence. DeSimone and Bowser speak with survivors and question why so few mental health care services are available.

Find this story on the web.

Julie Rovner

These stories represent Rovner's in-depth coverage of the final debate, passage and early implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The first story points out that the most controversial element of the measure, the requirement that most individuals have health insurance, was an idea originally introduced by Republicans, not Democrats. The second story is one of several segments on All Things Considered where Rovner researched and answered specific listener questions about how the law could affect them. These segments proved highly popular with listeners and also provided an opportunity to highlight elements of the measure that might not have merited an entire radio piece. The third story is Part 3 of a series on how provisions of the law are aimed at improving the provision of primary care medicine. This piece looks at the role of mid-level health. Parts 1 and 2 of the series examined "medical homes" and solo practitioners. The final story was one of several examining the backlash against the law. This one pointed out that while Republicans were running on a platform urging repeal, many of their usual allies in the business community weren't necessarily on board.

See this story on the web.

Marilyn Serafini; Additional credit: Bara Vaida

These stories lead up to and follow the health care reform efforts in 2010 and highlight the numerous issues that important both to passage and to the effects on the various stakeholders.

Betsy Q. Cliff

This beat is primarily concerned with helping readers make decisions about their own health. Under that charge, the reporter concentrated on reporting on health trends, developments or issues that make a difference in the lives of readers.

This is a series of news stories about how salt intake is excessive in most countries around the world, and the keyrole that salt plays in hypertension, leading to higher risk of stroke, heart attack and premature death. It also covers attempts in different places to reduce sodium in the diet, and the cost-savings this would generate. And the series includes a feature article about whether the US will join other countries that have already successfully implemented population-wide salt reduction policies.

See the story on the web.

Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer may feel rushed to make decisions such as to have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, or to have reconstructive surgery immediately, later or not at all. This feature looks at all these choices and gives helpful information about each of these procedures, as well as expert opinions on their pros and cons.

See the story on the web.

Certain osteoporosis drugs can put women at risk for other skeletal problems. This story looked at the benefits and often serious risks of bone preservers (biophosphates), bone stimulators (teriparatide), estrogen impersonators (such as raloxifene), calcium savers (calcotonin) and other osteoporosis drugs on the horizon.

See the story on the web.

An estimated 26 million Americans suffer from back pain. While doctors have treated back pain for decades with surgeries, research shows that this is no better, and sometimes worse, than low-tech treatments. On the flip side, research shows that many people who suffer from back pain do NOT receive treatment that does work. This feature takes a close look at simple treatments that do work to help.

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Parija Kavilanz

"Kids caught in the Medicaid pay crossfire" brings to light a troubling trend of pediatricians and pediatric specialists who are either no longer taking new Medicaid patients or even dropping existing ones because they felt that the payment from the government program was not adequately covering their business costs. "Tylenol recall: Serious side effects investigated," "Tylenol plant: From bad to worse" and "Behind the ‘phantom recall' of Motrin" investigated a Johnson & Johnson's McNeil unit recall of more than 50 children's versions of these non-prescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs on April 30, 2010, for serious quality and safety concerns The company remained tight-lipped about the specific problems with those drugs, manufacturing problems at the plant that made those recalled drugs and consumers complaints received about the recalled drugs.

Chronic inflammation is associated with an abundance of fat cells in the belly. Irritants spewed out by fat cells drive white blood cells and inflammatory chemicals to stay in high gear. This can trigger autoimmune diseases, cancer, heart disease and Alzheimers. By cutting back on sugar, keeping weight down and exercising regularly, women can avoid chronic inflammation and its consequences.

See the story on the web.

This story points out that even when family members are in agreement and even when end-of-life issues have been discussed long beforehand, difficult decisions remain.

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This investigation found that while the overall number of deaths of inmates in California state prisons decreased, the number of inmates whose deaths might have been prevented with better care actually increased. It also found that independent reviews of medical facilities conducted by California's inspector general for prisons revealed that California's prisons routinely violated medical policies and protocols, leading to delays and denials of treatment for inmates. Also, California officials' repeated refusal to fund the receiver's turnaround plan delayed construction of sanitary medical facilities, computerization of health records and hiring independent executives to oversee medical care at prisons. The report also found that the lack of infrastructure improvements and systemic change contributed to lapses in care for inmates that range from dangerous to deadly.

See the story on the web.

The story marks the 25th anniversary of the first heart transplant in Oklahoma, a night born of tragedy but propelled by hope and orchestrated by the charismatic Dr. Nazih Zuhdi.

See the story on the web.

This series examined issues surrounding the EPA and its regulation of toxic chemicals in the United States. 

See the story on the web.

Whether people were for or against the new health care law, one issue seemed universal: few people understood it. With that in mind, WebMD decided to tackle health care reform confusion through a variety of channels that included taking reader questions directly to the White House. Here are some highlights of what we did:

1. Got Health Insurance: What Health Reform Means. This story outlined in an easy-to-read fashion the changes that were already in affect from the new law and those that were upcoming.

2. Health Care Reform: Your Questions Answered. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius answers questions on video from WebMD readers about the changes to health care that took effect Sept. 23 of last year.

3. Health Insurance Navigator. Because health care questions are ongoing, we established this blog to help readers better understand how to get the most out of their health insurance along with changes from the new health care reform law. This particular post was the most popular from last year.

This story discussed the problem of the growing trend for Big Pharma to outsource clinical drug trials overseases and enroll in countries with poor oversight. Current Medicine also interviewed in July the author of the OIG report, Joyce Greenleaf, Regional Inspector General for the HHS. Subsequent to our coverage, Vanity Fair and other national sources issued their own stories.

Marilynn Preston

Four stories comprise this submission. "Dashboard Delirium" is based on the news coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show of 2010, and deals with an accelerating consumer health issue: driving while distracted. The column blends news, commentary and expert opinion, helping readers steer clear of a growing public safety problem. "When Haiti Hits Home" links the tragic news about the earthquake in Haiti to the stresses felt by people around the globe, even Americans. The column helps people frame the tragedy and cope with it, giving readers stress reduction skills they can use in their everyday life. "Bored With Health Care Reform?" calls attention to the need for more focus on prevention and wellness, and speaks to the importance of not only reducing costs of medical care but also reducing demand. In "Ride Your Bike to Work! Spin You Can Believe In," I call attention to National Bike to Work Day and month and encourage people to ride more, build strength, save fuel, lower stress.

Shuka Kalantari

Health Dialogues hears the story of a young Iraqi refugee and asks what services are made available to people fleeing conflict countries.

Listen to the story on the web.

Sue Pondrom

Four stories comprise this body of work. "Best Intentions Gone Awry" describes how Congress attempted to support experimental trials of islet transplantation for Type 1 diabetes, yet the unintended  consequences of their action are fewer islet recipients and increasingly fewer islet transplant centers in the U.S. In "Can Generics Be Trusted?," transplant physicians are concerned about the safety of generic versions of the mainstay immunosuppressant drugs organ recipients need to stay alive, but, concerns have been based on anecdotes, not published studies. The final story, "Survival Rates Increase in Bowel Transplantation," explores the field of bowel transplantation, which has remained relatively unknown by both the public and medical professionals who could potentially refer patients. "AMR: A Difficult Problem With No Easy Solution" explores Food and Drug Administration discussions on Acute Antibody-Mediated Rejection, the primary cause of organ rejection in transplant recipients.

Diane Suchetka

Brie Zeltner

Brie Zeltner's stories provide consumers information about the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency in the nation and the debate over changing the daily recommended allowance; told a moving, personal story of the difficulties of living with the chronic pain of migraines; warned readers about the link between sedentary time and early death; and identified the most commonly misdiagnosed illnesses and how to spot the signs before it's too late.

Molly Hennessy-Fiske

These beat entries investigate one of the Los Angeles area public hospitals, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.

"Hospital put babies at risk, audit finds" and "Infant care at hospital probed" showed hospital staff not only endangered babies by running a makeshift beauty salon in the neonatal intensive care unit, they also violated state regulations by keeping babies in the unit rather than transfer them to better equipped hospitals. "Death spotlights gaps in surgery center oversight" highlights the case of Maria Garcia, a mother of five who died after she was operated on by two surgeons later investigated by the state medical board. In "A journey of risk, hope," the treatment of Dylan Catania, who was born with a rare brain defect that required radical surgery, is chronicled with a multimedia presentation including photographs, videos, graphics, a glossary and Q&A with Dylan's pediatric neurologist.

See these stories on the web.

William Heisel; Additional credit: Jenn Harris, Barbara Feder Ostrov

This entry takes a state-by-state analysis of how doctors are disciplined and how the public is informed. With the help of intern Jenn Harris, William Heisel found that medical boards from coast to coast are inconsistent, inefficient and ill equipped to monitor the hundreds of thousands of doctors licensed under their watch. There are some standouts, but overall they do not adequately protect patients and inform the public. The 51 doctors profiled were responsible for injuring or killing 290 patients. The majority of these doctors are still in practice and most have had licenses in more than one state. An interactive Google map created for the series shows people exactly where the doctors practice. This, we believe, is the first map of its kind. Because physician oversight is so fragmented, it is nearly impossible for patients to go to one spot and check to see if their doctor has been in trouble.

The beat | The Google map

JoNel Aleccia

At MSNBC.com, reporter JoNel Aleccia has crafted the consumer health beat to discover, analyze and explain pressing health issues with significant impact in readers' daily lives. In these four representative stories, Aleccia exposed the lack of regulation and accountability for veterinarians who make medical errors; revealed a little-known provision of the health reform law that exempts faith-based medical exchanges from 'play-or-pay' insurance mandates; reported on growing rates of infections transmitted by transplanted organs; and was the first national outlet to report on an alarming shortage of vital drugs in the United States.

See the beat on the web.

Kaiser Health News' occasional series of stories explores important trends transforming the hospital industry. For example, we've examined the struggles of community hospitals to remain independent, the acquisition of nonprofit hospitals by for-profit companies, the effect of the new health law on physician-owned hospitals and the failed attempts by regulators to make hospital prices transparent. And, most importantly, at a time of national concern over rising health care spending, hospitals are consolidating, often in concert with physician practices, and becoming marketplace powerhouses that dictate higher prices to insurers and employers. This phenomenon, a growing contributor to the upward spiral of health care spending, is especially evident in northern California. KHN extensively analyzed California hospital prices and interviewed dozens of experts and hospital executives to illustrate the impact of Sutter Health, the priciest chain. By year's end, KHN was far ahead of the media pack in reporting on changes in the biggest-spending component of the health system: America's hospitals.

See the story on the web.

The story was based on a research study in JAMA concerning women who may carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which increase their likelihood of breast and ovarian cancer. The study determined that preventive surgery to remove the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and breasts did save lives. But this story also had a personal side: an interview with a woman who had to decide whether to get tested, and then when she found out she carried the gene, what to do next. The study came down on the side of preventive surgery, as did the woman in DeNoon's story. But the use of the personal story amplified the study, and DeNoon also clearly laid out, through the personal interview and expert sources, a path towards a decision, and the best way for woman in this grueling position to make an informed decision.

See the story on the web.

The legend of New England Baptist Hospital physician Dr. A. Razzaque Ahmed, a specialist in rare blistering diseases, has been echoing around the Boston medical world for years, with some professionals dismissing him as a quack and many patients calling him their savior. To get to the bottom of the story, Robert Weisman interviewed dozens of patients, colleagues and former colleagues, Medicare and law enforcement officials, as well as Ahmed himself, and painted a portrait of a man who is both a convicted felon and is credited for saving the lives and sight of hundreds of people.

See the story on the web.

This feature story explores the effect that antidepressants can have in treating depression, in the wake of a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting that antidepressants work best for people with severe depression. The story also explores the expectations that some people have about what antidepressants will do for them, the reality that's more likely, and the lifestyle and therapy measures that are also needed.

See the story on the web.

Individual mandates, high-risk insurance pools, small business tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies. Those are just a few of the many provisions in the new federal health law and changes confronting - and confusing - consumers. After the enactment of the health care overhaul last March, Kaiser Health News began a weekly column - "Insuring Your Health" - that is dedicated to explaining insurance issues and the effects of the law. We felt it was important to get beyond the white-hot national political debate that surrounded the legislation and provide readers with a clear view of how insurance currently works and what issues would be addressed by the health law. The feature, written by Michelle Andrews, has dealt with major changes brought by the legislation - such as the establishment of insurance pools for people with medical problems and getting coverage for adult children. But she has also highlighted a number of lesser known problems, some of which may not be solved by the law. The column runs on the KHN website and is used by a number of our partners, including The Washington Post, the Tribune Co. websites and MSNBC.

See the story on the web:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

One of the mysteries of American medicine is why Americans pay twice as much for health care as consumers in other developed nations while getting outcomes that are no better, and often worse. Simple over-consumption does not explain the numbers: Americans have fewer doctor visits and shorter hospital stays, for example, than patients in many European countries. But, as a team of Star Tribune reporters found, the American health care system is riddled with perverse incentives that can lead doctors and hospitals to recommend too much of the wrong kind of medicine, often the most costly and technology-intensive medicine. The result drives up health care costs and often produces inferior care.

See the story on the web.

Maggie Fox, Julie Steenhuysen and Ben Hirschler Kate Kelland in London, videographer Kevin Fogarty, Lisa Richwine in Washington, Ransdell Pierson in New York and Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong also contributed.

This special report looked at the new science of whole genome sequencing and how it does -- and doesn't -- affect people's health.

See the story on the web.

Robert Weisman

Last March, The Boston Globe broke the story of the most significant change in the region's health care landscape in years: the sale of Caritas Christi Health Care, a Boston area chain of six Catholic community hospitals, to a New York buyout firm. The paper reported throughout the year on the man behind the deal, ambitious Caritas chief executive Ralph de la Torre, and the wide-ranging impact of the deal on the people and communities in the region. Among other things, the deal created an opening for the expansion of for-profit health care in a state long dominated by non-profit hospitals.

Less than a month after Johnson & Johnson's McNeil unit recalled more than 50 children's versions of these non-prescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs on April 30, 2010 for serious quality and safety concerns, the company remained tightlipped about the specific problems with those drugs, manufacturing problems at the plant that made those recalled drugs and consumers complaints received about the recalled drugs. CNNMoney.com was the first to report the extent of the manufacturing problems at the McNeil's plant in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania where the recalled drugs were made. CNNMoney.com was the first to report that the recalled children's possibly contained small metal parts and that the Food and Drug Administration had received at least 775 consumer complaints about McNeil's recalled drugs. CNNMoney.com was also among the first to report how McNeil may have attempted a secret recall of some Motrin products in 2009 buy hiring a contractor to clandestinely remove the drugs from store shelves without fully disclosing its actions to the FDA.

See this story on the web.

There's no strong scientific evidence that chronic Lyme disease exists. Yet doctors are treating it with drugs that put patients and the public at risk. While Lyme disease is real, some doctors tell patients with symptoms as common as fatigue, eye twitching and pain that they have a chronic version of Lyme. These doctors then prescribe months, even years, of intravenous antibiotics, sometimes two or three or four at a time. Such treatment is dangerous and has killed some patients. Moreover, these drugs can cost tens of thousands of dollars a month and are not covered by insurance when used for this purpose, forcing some desperate patients to cash in retirement accounts and mortgage their homes to pay for treatment that four clinical trials have shown to be risky and ineffective for their conditions. This Tribune investigation exposed how some promoters of the chronic Lyme plague are criminals, and luminaries in this world have been disciplined by medical boards for harming patients. Yet the chronic Lyme movement has gained such traction with the public that advocates have raised millions of dollars to fight the condition and have succeeded in getting laws passed to shield chronic Lyme doctors from the actions of medical boards.

See the story on the web.

This is a letter of advice from one cancer survivor to future cancer survivors.

See the story on the web.

This entry is a personal column written by the reporter when she lost her hair to chemotherapy during cancer treatment.

See the story on the web.

A data analysis of Lobbying Disclosure Act filings by the Center for Public Integrity, "Lobbyists Swarm Capitol to Influence Health Reform," found that businesses, trade groups and other interests hired more than eight lobbyists for each member of Congress to influence health reform legislation. The list of organizations that worked to put their imprint on health reform bills ranged from health care interests and advocacy groups to giant corporations without apparent ties to the healthcare industry, small businesses, American Indian tribes, religious groups, and universities. Together, the businesses and organizations spent $1.2 billion on their lobbying efforts. The money, experts say, was well spent, with lobbyists winning massive concessions and bonuses for industry players in the final health reform law. The prolonged health reform battle was also a boon to Washington lobby firms, which recruited heavily from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and other federal agencies and used their experts to draw down record profits, according to the Center report, "Washington Lobbying Giants Cash in on Health Reform Debate."

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McClatchy provided the most exhaustive and independent coverage of the Gulf oil spill and its effects in stories that warned of the devastating consequences; exposed BP's failures to measure the amount of oil spilled and the reasons for the disaster; and uncovered the Obama administration's inability to assess the damage, to halt drilling as the president ordered or to protect cleanup workers.

Through sources at UCLA hospital, the Los Angeles Times learned of a newborn baby who had been diagnosed with a seizure disorder that required radical brain surgery. Reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske contacted his parents and doctors and persuaded them to allow her, a photographer and videographer to follow them before, during and after surgery to explain the science involved.

See the story on the web.

Internal searches of WebMD showed a sudden spike in people lookng for information for "K2." It didn't take long to find out that K2 was one of the "legal highs" offered for sale at head shops and internet sites. A check with NIDA's chemistry chief confirmed that the drug is one of several synthetic cannabinoids. So are these drugs merely marijuana in disguise? As it turned out, only recently had anyone determined exactly which compounds were in the drugs -- a German toxicologist who finally managed to tease out the active substance. In an astonishing interview, this scientist described to DeNoon his own experience testing the drug on himself. But how bad could a mere cannabis-drug be? To find out, DeNoon tracked down the chemist who created most of these compounds in his lab -- as reagents. Never intended for human consumption, they were based on carcinogenic compounds. And they were vastly more potent than marijuana. Formated as an FAQ, the story nevertheless carries a powerful narrative line. The article avoids ain't-it-awful moralizing while delivering a powerful safety message to potential users of these substances, which at the time of writing remained easily available. It was among the most-read WebMD articles of 2010.

See the story on the web.

It seemed to be the perfect antidote to heartburn - a harmless pill that you can pop once a day and keep misery at bay. That's how Prilosec and its cousins became blockbuster drugs, with over 100 million prescriptions a year in the U.S. alone. This story examines the flipside of that trend: the growing evidence that heartburn drugs are vastly overused, wasting billions of dollars and possibly doing more harm than good.

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One of the mysteries of American medicine is why Americans pay twice as much for health care as consumers in other developed nations while getting outcomes that are no better, and often worse. Simple over-consumption does not explain the numbers: Americans have fewer doctor visits and shorter hospital stays, for example, than patients in many European countries. But, as a team of Star Tribune reporters found, the American health care system is riddled with perverse incentives that can lead doctors and hospitals to recommend too much of the wrong kind of medicine, often the most costly and technology-intensive medicine. The result drives up health care costs and often produces inferior care. These perverse incentives are well-known to health care analysts, but we wanted to make them plain to the general public while giving our readers the tools to be informed consumers in their own care. Star Tribune staff focused on three conditions and procedures that millions of Americans encounter each year, that have clear clinical evidence of overuse, and that are amenable to change at the behest of consumers or policymakers: childbirth, back pain and digestive distress.

See the story on the web.

One of the mysteries of American medicine is why Americans pay twice as much for health care as consumers in other developed nations while getting outcomes that are no better, and often worse. Simple over-consumption does not explain the numbers: Americans have fewer doctor visits and shorter hospital stays, for example, than patients in many European countries. But, as a team of Star Tribune reporters found, the American health care system is riddled with perverse incentives that can lead doctors and hospitals to recommend too much of the wrong kind of medicine, often the most costly and technology-intensive medicine. The result drives up health care costs and often produces inferior care.

See the story on the web:

Part 1

Part 2

The three stories that are part of the entry represent our coverage of medical issues related to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. In each case, they forge a link between the efforts of health professionals in New England and the survivors of the calamity.

See the story on the web.

This project was a partnership between the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting and the Sacramento Bee. This story examines how California health care providers (and California patients) will respond when the leading edge of the Baby Boomers generation reaches the age of 65.

See the story online.

The Dallas Morning News completed a yearlong investigation into patient harm and doctor training. The investigation focused on lax supervision of doctors-in-training, patient harm and alleged billing fraud at Dallas' premier medical school complex and its primary teaching hospital, which are financed largely by taxpayers. We also examined more broadly questions about medical training, patient care and healthcare fraud at teaching hospitals around the United States.

See this story on the web.

This series contains three breaking news stories about FDA complaints against pharma giant Pfizer.

This project examined an often-overlooked type of health care provider - certified athletic trainers working in secondary schools. Only about a third of the nation's schools have professional athletic trainers regularly available to students. Beyond saving lives or careers, the report showed that sports medicine specialists ensure that injured athletes receive levels of care appropriate to their condition, utilizing data from a unique government surveillance system. Specifically, we found that in locations where there were high concentrations of athletic trainers, athletes were more likely to present to emergency departments with more severe injuries, like concussions and fractures, and less likely to show up for treatment of abrasions and sprains which the trainers can usually assess and treat on site. The reverse was true in locations that had a lighter concentration of athletic trainers among the schools -- places where coaches, EMTs handle injuries were more likely to refer lesser injuries and less likely to send along more serious cases to an ER. The stories also explored the role played by school athletic trainers in providing health services beyond sports, and the considerable savings in time and money the trainers bring by offering treatment and rehabilitation services in schools during and after class hours. In effect, athletic trainers serve as front-line community health providers in their schools and often in the surrounding community.

See the story on the web.

An investigation by The Dallas Morning News found that a criminal probe into two former workers accused of abusing seven residents in the Alzheimer's disease unit at a state-owned veterans home languished for more than two years because of confusion over who should investigate, and conflicts among local police, state officials, and veterans home administrators.

See the story on the web.

While much has been written and reported about the growing shortage of primary care doctors in the United States, this story highlights one important aspect of the problem that isn't well-known and hasn't received much attention: shortage of country doctors. Many of the nation's designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) are actually located in rural America. This story presents some eye-opening statistics. While 20% of the U.S. populations lives in rural areas, only 9% of the physician population practice in these area. The story profiles a country doctor - the only primary care internist for a community of 1,500 people - who shut his practice in a HPSA area after the recession further bruised his ability to stay competitive with the larger area hospitals. The story highlights the fact the U.S. has about 66 million people living in HPSA areas and close to 7,500 primary care physicians needed to bridge the physician shortfall in these doctor-starved areas.

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The series follows Shannon and Kip Brooks, a young Charlotte-area couple who are devastated to learn their unborn baby has a fatal birth defect, anencephaly. They continue the pregnancy, instead of having an abortion, hoping to meet their baby Skylar and find some good in their tragedy by donating her organs. When the Brookses confront resistance from friends and the donor community, they persevere. The result: They spent 99 minutes with Skylar on the day of her birth, surrounded by loving relatives, friends and health-care providers. They call her birthday, Aug. 7, 2010, the "best day of our lives." And they persuaded the Charlotte-area donor procurement agency to accept Skylar's liver cells for donation. Shannon and Kip Brooks were chosen to represent other donor families on the "Donate Life" float in the Tournament of Roses Parade on Jan. 1, 2011.

See the story on the web.

This is a four-part series on the impact of concussions in high school athletics and beyond.

See the series on the web.

"The Vanishing Mind" tackled the subject of Alzheimer's, reporting about the worldwide struggle to find answers - the breakthroughs, frustrations and setbacks in diagnosis, care giving and treatment of this terrifying illness.The stories describe a watershed year in Alzheimer's disease research and in understanding the needs of people with the disease and their caregivers. They include a package of stories from a remote region of Colombia that is home to the world's largest family to experience Alzheimer's.

See the series on the web.

1. A Syracuse University professor overseeing efforts to rid the health insurance payment system of conflicts of interest had a conflict of her own -- she was a director of insurer Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.

2. A merger may be the best chance of survival for a Syracuse hospital in deteriorating financial health.

3. A look at Central New York doctors who get paid by drug companies to talk up their products.

4. New York rarely takes disciplinary action against dentists, even one deemed a public threat.

This story uncovered unfathomable sexual abuses that occurred against severely mentally disabled men at a number of Florida care facilities. St. Petersburg Times reporter Justin George delves deep into the issue in this investigative piece. 

See the story and the sidebar on the web.

This piece explores the psychological terrain of one family and their decisions regarding genetic testing to determine whether they have Huntington's Disease, an incurable brain disorder.

See this story on the web.

This series provides an intimate portrait of the family of infant Christopher Schroeder, who was born with a number of heart defects that made a heart transplant his only chance for survival. The reporter and photojournalist followed the family for more than six months, including the anxious months waiting for an organ donor and afterward. They witnessed the transplant surgery and chronicled the many highs and lows of the baby's long recovery. The series included several other stories to educate readers about different aspects of organ donation, associated laws and procedures.

See the series on the web: 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This Dallas Morning News story discusses the potential benefits of travel following a cancer diagnosis or during the treatment process.

See the story on the web.

This story and sidebar provided an in-depth look at the U.S. government's struggle to police pharmaceutical companies' increasingly aggressive efforts to market pills and other therapeutics to consumers. The story was inspired by a Food and Drug Administration letter that chided one company for throwing a Tupperware-like party pitch for an implanted birth-control device. The reporters revealed tactical, financial and technological problems that limit the FDA's ability to rein in misleading claims amid a swelling number of promotions.

See this story on the web.

This piece for the Bay Area pages of the New York Times investigated why - although dental disease is preventable - it is not unusual for California children to suffer crippling and disabling cases of it. By the age of 5, according to reports used for this article, more than 28 percent of California children have untreated tooth decay. Journalist Laurie A. Udesky reveals why in this investigative story.

See this story on the web.

In the Health and Wellness segment, "The Challenges of Breastfeeding," CBS News discusses the health benefits of breastfeeding and consults experts who provide tips on how to make the breast feeding process easier.

See this video on the web.

Less than a month after Johnson & Johnson's McNeil unit recalled more than 50 children's versions of these non-prescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs on April 30, 2010 for serious quality and safety concerns, the company remained tight-lipped about the specific problems with those drugs, manufacturing problems at the plant that made those recalled drugs and consumers complaints received about the recalled drugs. CNNMoney.com was the first to report the extent of the manufacturing problems at the McNeil's plant in Fort Washington, Penn., where the recalled drugs were made. In the story, "Tylenol plant: From bad to worse," CNNMoney.com was the first to report that FDA inspection reports going back to 2003 chronicles a build up of problems at McNeil's plant in Fort Washington, Pa., at the center of the widespread recall of Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other over-the-counter drugs. CNNMoney.com was also the first to report that Government safety inspectors pushed for a recall of the children's medicines at least three months before Johnson & Johnson removed the products from store shelves.

See this story on the web.

Parija Kavilanz

Less than a month after Johnson & Johnson's McNeil unit recalled more than 50 children's versions of these non-prescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs on April 30, 2010, for serious quality and safety concerns, the company remained tight-lipped about the specific problems with those drugs, manufacturing problems at the plant that made those recalled drugs and consumers complaints received about the recalled drugs. CNNMoney.com was the first to report the extent of the manufacturing problems at the McNeil's plant in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania where the recalled drugs were made. CNNMoney.com was also the first to report that the recalled children's possibly contained small metal parts. This story was the first to report that the Food and Drug Administration had received at least 775 consumer complaints about McNeil's recalled drugs from Jan. 1, 2008, through April 30, 2010. The story also revealed that the FDA had received several hundred more consumer complaints about the children_s drugs after it was recalled in April, 2010.

See this story on the web. 

Parija Kavilanz

This story brought to light a troubling trend of physicians - specifically pediatricians and pediatric specialists - who are either no longer taking new Medicaid patients or even dropping existing Medicaid patients because the felt that the payment from the government program was not adequately covering their business costs. The story illustrated the trend through the real life example of Dr. Jaquelin Gotlieb, an Atlanta-area pediatrician who still accepts Medicaid patients while many of her peers no longer do. Her frustration as a doctor is the difficulty she faces in finding specialists for her young Medicaid patients because many specialists in her area also no longer accept Medicaid. This story is being played out nationally, with many young children being caught in the reimbursement crossfire between doctors and the government-run healthcare programs.

See the story on the web.

Timothy  Noah

1) "How Insurers Reject You" used a confidential document from BlueCross BlueShield of Texas (exclusively obtained by Slate) to examine the ludicrous extent to which insurers in the non-group market count even the most trivial preexisting conditions against people applying for health insurance, a practice now being phased out under the new health reform law.

2) "Unreconciled" explains how the reconciliation process, which health reform opponents claimed was never used for substantive legislation, had actually been used to pass the most substantive domestic bill of the Clinton administration (and one dear to those same opponents' hearts) welfare reform. This column was much-cited after it appeared.

3) "Why Stupak Is Wrong" which was cited even more widely, explained why Rep. Bart Stupak's claim that the Senate-passed health reform law would let taxpayer funds pay for abortions was not a matter of ideological disagreement, but simply incorrect, and tried to explain Stupak's flawed logic more fully than Stupak had been able to do for himself.

4) "Author, Author" eviscerated the Heritage Foundation's self-serving denial that Obamacare was substantially influenced by policies earlier developed at ... Heritage.

The title of the first story - Amid Nanotech's Dazzling Promise, Health Risks Grow - pretty much sums up the issues. The series focused on the fact that the government spends hundreds of millions to create new uses of this often amazing technology, but research did show that only a small fraction of the money went to researching the potential health hazards of the from human contact with the material. The reporter also documented that many of the nanoparticles being sold commercially use nanoparticles that scientists - including from the government - have shown to be lethal.

See the series on the web:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Sidebar 1

Sidebar 2

The story recounted the strange rise and fall of a promising young surgeon, John Christian Gunn, whose eventual arrest and sentencing for bank robbery led to questions of how his poor performance during residency and his bizarre behavior in practice didn't raise more warning flags.

See the series on the web:

Part 1

Part 2

Connecticut's statewide respite care program was established in 1989 for patients with Alzheimer's, dementia-related disorders and their caregivers. The thinking was that caregivers could care for their loved ones at home instead of a nursing facility and save money in the process, while their loved ones could remain at home and retain their independence. In an assessment by the Center on Aging at the University of Connecticut in 2007, the estimated cost for an individual in a nursing facility, on average, was $119,000 per year; by contrast, a live-in home companion will cost around $70,000. Since Connecticut has a budget shortfall like most states, the cost of living for our elderly population is going to be a big issue in coming fiscal years. In April 2009, Connecticut's General Assembly unanimously passed an extension of this program and Gov. Rell signed it in May 2009. Caregivers received a yearly allowance of $3,500 for their loved ones under the old law for basic necessities such as food. The extension would have boosted that figure to $7,500 if the caregiver could demonstrate "additional need for services." What caregivers didn't know was that the program had been closed to new people with these illnesses two weeks before Rell signed the bill and would be closed for the remainder of 2010 because of the budget shortfall. More importantly, DSS quietly required that people who had been screened and in the system receive a maximum of $3,500. This series documents the struggle to balance the budget while maintaining an important social program for Connecticut residents. James Zipadelli was the primary reporter on this series for the national Web site OurParents.com. No attempt was made to influence these stories in any way by OurParents.com.

See the story on the web.

The story examines unethical practices of using the gastric band on obese teens (for whom the device is not approved) and how some doctors have glossed over complications with the device amid a lack of long-term data. The story also shines light on the relationships between the device manufacturers, doctors/researchers and those charged with overseeing medical standards. It highlights the fact that the FDA was unaware of ethical issues surrounding the NYU surgeon who submitted to FDA clinical results using Allergan's Lap-Band.

See the story on the web.

Stories are part of an on-going series on conflicts of interest in medicine.

The March 14 story was about the pharmaceutical industry using more private doctors to do promotional speaking for its drugs as universities banned such activities.

The May 30 story was about academic physicians being used by drug companies to conduct clinical trials while those companies controlled the clinical trial data.

The July 14 story was the result of a Wisconsin Open Records lawsuit filed by the Journal Sentinel against the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine to obtain emails of doctors' comments about UW's conflict of interest policy.

The August 29 story was about the FDA's approval of a revolutionary back surgery device based on clinical research by several orthorpedic surgeons who stood to benefit financially.

The November 28 story was about the FDA's approval of jaw joint replacement devices despite flimsy clinical trial data from doctors who had financial ties to the companies that made the devices.

See the series on the web.

Central Florida schools are continually battling mold -- some of it the most potentially dangerous, toxin-producing types. Over the past three years, local school districts have received thousands of complaints from teachers, students and others about moldy smells, mold-infested walls and furniture and health problems thought to be related to poor indoor air quality. The state has acknowledged and university research shows that such problems are widespread in Florida. Yet there are no state laws to govern how schools should prevent, monitor and fix these problems. A grand jury in South Florida urged legislators almost a decade ago to force schools to make improvements, but nothing has changed. The last time the Florida Legislature considered tougher regulations - in 2004 - it learned that identifying problems would be expensive and would make the state vulnerable to lawsuits. Since then, some schools have made matters worse by shutting off the air-conditioning to save money during weekends and summers in one of the hottest, most humid states in the country. And because maintenance funding has dwindled over the past few years, schools are putting off repairing and replacing roofs and air-conditioning systems -- the primary means for controlling the moisture that mold needs to grow and thrive indoors.

See this series on the web.

Christina Sanchez

At 38, Dawn Gusty could barely walk. The mother of two had been fighting multiple sclerosis for 12 years. Her condition was degenerating, and doctors could only offer her injections to reduce her symptoms. They didn't work. She knew if she just followed their advice she would soon be immobile. She couldn't accept that and decided against the advice of her neurologist to go to Mexico to get what the United States wouldn't allow her to have a stem cell transplant. In "Her last chance to walk," The Tennessean reporter Christina Sanchez tells the story of Gusty's journey, from the first twinges of her disease through her decision to risk everything on unorthodox therapy abroad.

See this story on the web. The Story | Video | Infographic I | Infrographic II | Slideshow

Chuck  Kurtz

The articles looked at several aspects of the then just-passed health care reform legislation: public health agencies and who they serve; the insured and the uninsured; the impact to family physicians; reaction from local and federal elected officials; and the impact to pharmacies and prescription drugs and their customers, especially senior citizens. The most significant finding was in interviewing pharmacists and their claims of pharmacy benefit managers being the main reason for the high cost of prescription drugs.

Pedro Fernando Frisneda

This three-part series was about diabetes and how this disease is affecting the Mexican-immigrant community in New York City. Type 2 diabetes represents a major health challenge and threat for this group, in which both new cases of the disease an the risk of associated complications are greater than in other communities. Health authorities and many doctors in the United States already classified diabetes as an "epidemic" and Latinos have two times higher risk of developing this disease than people of any other race. Diabetes ranks first among health problems affecting Hispanics in this country (10.2% of all U.S. Latinos). The Mexican community is at highest risk, representing 24% of all cases and the worst part is that half of them do not know they are ill.

See this story on the web: Part I | Part II | Part III

Lisa Chedekel

Lisa uncovered that several doctors were practicing freely in Connecticut after being disciplined or sanctioned in the neighboring states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. She also found that Connecticut often takes no action against doctors who are disciplined neighboring states in contrast to medical boards in those other states, which do impose their own reciprocal sanctions after Connecticut takes disciplinary action. Also some doctors sanctioned in other states have relocated to Connecticut, with no license restrictions.

See this story on the web.

Tracey Ann O'Shaughnessy

The advent of gene testing makes it possible for people to peer into their medical future. But what does one do when confronted with the knowledge that a lethal disease is very likely in one's future? One Connecticut family, battered by cancer, believed it was taking preemptive measures when it began to test members and those members began having healthy tissues removed.

See this story on the web.

Heather  May

This explores why Latinos have up to double the rate of neural tube defects despite an inexpensive vitamin that can drastically reduce the risk. While many women know to take prenatal vitamins during pregnancy, most don't know to take it before pregnancy. The reasons for the health disparity are lack of education and the government's failure to fortify corn masa flour, a staple of the Latin diet.

Hiran Jayantha Ratnayake

"Insurance Claims Approved, Payments Denied" focused on how health insurance companies can approve claims but then drag their feet in paying the claim, especially in situations where the onus was on the policyholder to make sure their treatment provider was paid in a timely fashion.

"Treatment Brings New Hope for Hand Disease" investigated how hand surgeons who were considered the authorities on a specific hand-related disease were withholding information on another treatment option.

"Law Curbs Teen Tanning" focused on how lawmakers and cancer doctors were using misleading statistics to drive home the message that indoor tanning is highly dangerous to consumers.

"Generics Cheaper, But Not Often Cheap" looked at wide differences in the cost of the same generic medicines. Generics can cost $200 more at one pharmacy than another but the only way customers will find out is by actively shopping for generics the same way they do for other products.

Sonya Colberg

Patients are waking up during surgery and others are dying because health care workers are forced to stretch or substitute drugs that are in critically short supply. This story looks at the causes and outcomes to this issue which affects not only Oklahoma but health care facilities nationwide. This story looks to numerous health professionals who said they were concerned.

See this story on the web.

Sonya Colberg

Brendon Mathis began the fight of his life when doctors discovered the teen had an extremely rare form of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Fortunately, Brendon went into remission after his chemotherapy. But the next battle began when his doctor determined that only Procure Proton Therapy offered Brendon his best chance of staying healthy. The family and doctors began a passionate struggle to try to get the family's insurance company to cover the life-saving treatment. With the clock ticking, Brendon got the treatment though the insurance company continued to delay. To this day, the family isn't sure how much, if any, of the more than $100,000 treatment will be paid by the insurance company. Though the insurance commission figures show that more complaints are lodged against Blue Cross Blue Shield than any other company, the issue is common in the insurance industry.

Edmond teen's family seek answers

Heather May

This story is about the parallel paths of one family waiting for a liver transplant for their toddler and another family saying goodbye to their 12-year-old who would become the donor. Donor families and recipients don't usually connect so quickly. These families did at the donor's funeral.

See this story online.

Greg Barne, Jennifer Cahoun, John Ramsey

For years, studies have shown that soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from mental health problems caused by multiple deployments and the horrors of war, but they fail to put a human fact to the soldiers, families and their communities. 

The Fayetteville Observer pored over the studies and reams of information from the Army and Fort Bragg through the Freedom of Information Act. Reporters interviewed countless soldiers and their spouses, health providers, Army officials and community activists. The result was a five-part series in which soldiers and their spouses reflect on how the hidden wounds of war have taken a toll on their lives, and how the Army and society are ill-prepared for the mental health issues that are only now begining to present themselves.

See this story on the web.

Kay Ellen Schwebke

Every year, an estimated 250,000 central-line associated bloodstream infections, or CLABSI, occur in U.S. hospitals and 30,000 to 62,000 people die as a result. Although a successful prevention model exists, there has been no national improvement in reducing these infections. "On the CUSP: STOP Blood Stream Infections (BSI)," a model developed by researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Quality and Safety Research Group, eliminated CLABSI in more than 70 Michigan hospitals and more than 103 intensive care units that participated in a study published in 2006. This success has been sustained for more than four years, saving thousands of lives and millions of dollars.

This story explored the low level of participation in Minnesota. Although several Minnesota organizations seemed to believe there was no need to participate since the problem was under control, staff from non-participating hospitals were unwilling to release their infection rates. Meanwhile, staff from participating hospitals reported value, shared their infection rates, and encouraged other Minnesota hospitals to join them.

See this story on the web.

The health care system in Grand Junction, Co., is one of the highest-quality and lowest-cost in the nation. In short, it is health care reform that works. Colorado Public News explored what Grand Junction is doing to achieve such amazing results, in a five-part series with text, video, photos, and charts. The package includes interactive charts showing the quality and cost of health care in 300 cities around the nation.

View the 13-part package:
Part 1 Main | Find your city's rank in health care spending | Find your city's rank in health care quality | Medicare spending by state | Hospital care varies widely in Grand Junction and McAllen | Part 2 Main | Ready access highlights health care in grand junction | Grand Junction's multifaceted health care approach | Opting for exercise over surgery in grand junction | Grand Junction or McAllen: Who is healthier? | Can other communities replicate the grand junction model? | Just how much less expensive?

Indiana nursing homes may be the worst in country. They have fewer aides per patient than nursing homes in any other state. Fifty-two of what the Government Accountability Office considers to be the country's worst 510 nursing homes are in Indiana. Our projects team at The Indianapolis Star looked into why that is. This series found that Indiana had handed out more than $100 million of Medicaid money to nursing homes in a quality incentive program that officials later admitted was flawed. The program was pitched as a way to incentivize quality but all homes got the same amount of money no matter how poor their care. Local county health department had bought up 39 nursing homes and then diverted more than $200 million in Medicaid funding from them in order to build a hospital -- even as the quality of care at those homes dropped. Indiana was failing to take such basic safety measures as doing background checks on the people to whom it issued nurses licenses. The attorney general had largely ignored his obligation to discipline administrators of dangerously bad nursing homes -- even after the homes were flagged by the health department many years in a row.

See this story on the web. 

Yet, until our series of stories about dialysis, few outside of it were aware that despite massive outlays by U.S. taxpayers Americans endure some of the worst results for dialysis care in the industrialized world. Two years of investigating found a system infected by lax and ineffective oversight, provider profits that trumped patient needs and a cloak of secrecy hiding the real human costs. In the most egregious cases, dialysis patients had been killed by the very therapy meant to sustain them.

See this story on the web.

A Tribune investigation into a Chicago care center for disabled children revealed 13 deaths due to neglect or unexplained circumstances. Illnesses were ignored, life-support alarms went unanswered and kids with complex medical issues were left unattended. Instead of cracking down, lawmakers and regulators allowed problems to worsen. Rules were weakened, deaths not fully investigated and fines dropped or reduced. One child became a focus of the Tribune's reporting: Jeremiah Clark, a 9-year-old boy whose death followed two days of neglect.

See this story on the web.

Project Director: Jim Morris

Reporting Team: Steve Bradshaw Ana Avila Murali Krishnan Roman Shleynov Scilla Alecci Te-Ping Chen Dan Ettinger Carlos Eduardo Huertas Shantanu Guha Ray Marcelo Soares Abhishek Upadhyay

Editors: David E. Kaplan and Marina Walker Guevara (ICIJ)

This nine-month, cross-border investigation, conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in partnership with the BBC, revealed that a global network of industry groups has spent nearly $100 million in public and private money since the mid-1980s to keep asbestos -- a known killer banned or restricted in 52 countries -- on the market.

Based in Montreal, Mexico City, New Delhi and other cities and backed by industry-funded scientists, these groups share information and coordinate public-relations initiatives touting "controlled use" of asbestos. Public health authorities say that controlled use of the toxic fiber is nearly impossible in developing nations, where workplace and environmental standards are weak. The industry campaign, they say, is helping create new epidemics of asbestos-related disease in countries such as China and India. Independent scientists believe that between five to ten million people will die from asbestos-related disease by 2030, a toll increasingly centered in the developing world. A follow-up story published Dec. 20 revealed that Japan is using a questionable scientific method to test buildings for asbestos.

See this story on the web.

Over the past year, McClatchy's coverage of historic water contamination at Marines Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., has drawn new attention to a decades-old case that could prove to be among the military's most widespread environmental disasters to date. Former residents link the poisoned water to kidney cancer, childhood leukemia, lymphoma, reproductive cancer, miscarriages and a spate of more than 65 known cases of male breast cancer. Following McClatchy's stories, the Navy agreed to fund a million-dollar scientific study. Congress opened new investigations. And the Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged in September that the increased attention has led more ill Marines to seek disability compensation.

See this story on the web.

This piece covers years of Illinois public listings and selected the names of doctors whose offenses appeared to be of a sexual nature. It takes available public records such as complaints, suspension orders and transcripts of hearings, on to area courthouses and police stations, where relevant criminal and civil records were found. The Attorney General's office has yet to make determinations some of the cases.

See this story on the web.

This piece addresses several health care issues such as (1) patients being kept in the dark about problems with doctors and hospitals. Also, (2) hospitals either don't sanction dangerous or incompetent doctors, or find ways to avoid federal reporting rules. (3) The health care system does more to protect doctors' livelihoods than patients. (4) Missouri's regulation of doctors is among the most lax and secretive in the nation.

See this story on the web.

Headlines everywhere have described the storm of foreclosures that continue to overwhelm the housing market. Less noticed has been the impact on single-family homes that are used as lucrative care facilities for the elderly. In California, residents of such homes pay an average of $2,500 a month for a shared bedroom and $3,500 a month for a private bedroom. But as my article and accompanying blog show financial overreaching by proprietors has led to foreclosures of these homes and often the fragile residents and their families are the last ones to hear about it  --  when an eviction notice has been posted to the door.

This investigation for the Bay Area pages of the New York Times found that an astonishing 16 percent of the 1,600 San Francisco Bay Area properties licensed as small residential-care homes for the elderly had been in some stage of foreclosure since June 2006, including 100 homes that had been under foreclosure in the six months prior to the article's publication. The story also provided a look at the shadowy side of the business of buying and selling properties for licensed elder care. In addition, it revealed loopholes in the law, which made it possible for owners of homes used for elder care to keep secret that their properties had fallen into financial ruin.

See this story on the web.

Two wars and multiple deployments have caused enormous strains within the military ranks, contributing to a rising divorce rate that outpaces that of civilians, a record numbers of suicides and a sharp increase in mental health problems. After nearly 10 years of constant war, these burdens are straining military families to the breaking point, yet their plight has received scant attention outside of the military community.

In this 5-part series, The Dallas Morning News looks at how repeated combat tours have broken up families and contributed to a record number of suicides. How the two signature injuries of these wars -- post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury -- are wreaking havoc in many military families. And how citizen soldiers and their families, including the National Guard, are deploying at numbers not seen since World War II. These issues are explored through the personal stories of individual service members and their families. They generated strong response from readers via phone calls, comments and letters to the editor and helped raise awareness within the civilian community about the struggles facing military families today.

See this story on the web.

Lauran Neergaard, Marilynn Marchione, Lindsey Tanner, Randolph Schmid

For months, politicians and ordinary Americans argued about health care and whether to expand access to millions of uninsured people and how to do it. What that debate mostly ignored is a stunning and contrary idea: Many Americans are actually getting too much health care and are sicker for it. Four members of The Associated Press medical and science team investigated that phenomenon in a six-part series. Among the findings: Thousands who got stents for blocked arteries should have tried medicine first. Americans get the most radiation in the world, mostly from repeated CT scans, raising the risk of cancer. People with back pain have too many tests and too many operations when exercise and no treatment at all is often the best remedy. Extreme measures are taken far too often on people who are dying, making their final days even more excruciating, isolating them from their families.

See this story on the web.

The story tested the claims that were made to sell a 2004 law giving California nursing homes a major pay raise. California Watch found that nursing homes saw a funding increase of nearly a billion dollars over five years. Yet more than 230 homes either cut staff, wages or let caregiver levels slip beneath a state-mandated minimum. Reporters throughout California put a heartbeat to the problem, telling the stories of local patients who suffered harm in homes that reaped profit but cut care.

Watch the story on the web.

These eight articles are the major stories published during FactCheck.org's year-long look at false claims being made by politicians and political groups about the health care law. This piece of legislation -- both before and after it was passed -- has been the subject of the biggest falsehoods over the past two years. From the bogus assertion that the law institutes government-run health care to President Obama's over-reaching promise that everyone can keep their health insurance to hysterical Internet claims that patients will be required to get implanted microchips, Americans have seen it all when it comes to the health care law. The midterm elections also brought false and hyperbolic claims from outside groups that targeted seniors with scary messages saying the law "threatens [seniors'] lives" or could cause them to "lose their doctors." The reporters also tackled more sober claims about the impact on Medicare, insurance premiums and abortion coverage, giving  readers detailed information on what the law said and what it would likely do.

See the eight-part, year-long series below:

Still on the Table?

Health Care Summit Squabbles

A Final Weekend of Whoppers

More Malarkey About Health Care

Misleading Onslaught by 60 Plus

Pataki's Bogus Health Care Claims

Health Care Spin Again

The Truth About Health Insurance Premiums

The story shows how a McDonald's version of a 400-year old tobacco-containing snack has become widely popular and has made India the oral cancer capital of the world. Sales of chewing tobacco in the second-most-populous nation are predicted to reach $9 billion by 2014 and doctors are finding evidence that the product, known locally as gutka, can give users cancer in as little as five years. Narayan's exclusive reporting highlights the human cost of gutka and shows how gutka's affordability, questionable advertising and weak regulatory control have ensnared millions of nicotine addicts. Use of smokeless tobacco in school children is rising even in the U.S., and experts caution that the situation in India could be a harbinger for other countries as tobacco companies respond to smoking bans with products that are sucked, snorted and chewed.

Read the story here. | VIDEO

Liz Welch, writer

The average Redbook reader is in her very early 40s, facing a critical decision: whether to start regular mammography screening at 40, as the American Cancer Society suggests, or wait until age 50, as the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended in a highly controversial shift in 2009. Many news outlets covered the USPSTF's report and the ensuing backlash, but none explained what women should do next. One year later, the mammography debate was still raging and women were more confused than ever. No other magazine had taken on the issue, but Redbook plunged in and guided women through the contradictory information surrounding one of the biggest health debates of the decade: when to begin regular mammography. In her research, National Magazine Award -- winning reporter Liz Welch uncovered a poll by the American College of Physicians that found that 67 percent of doctors said they would stop recommending routine mammography at age 40, and documented through interviews with radiology centers a previously unreported 20-percent decrease in women seeking screening.

Rachael Moeller Gorman

Even though doctors have been telling us for decades that salt is one of the villains in our diet and public health leaders in NYC have started a crusade to slash salt from the food supply, there is no definitive proof that cutting salt will reduce risk of stroke or heart disease. NYC's salt-cutting crusade follows a long line of action preceding evidence, often with unfortunate results.

See the story on the web.

Douglas Podolsky, senior editor Leslie Ware, editor at large Kimberly Kleman, deputy editorial director, editor in chief, Consumer Reports Linda Greene, program leader, foods and sensory sciences Karen Rauen, director, health & consumer science operation David Schipper, research associate.

Consumer Reports' investigation -- including tests of 382 fresh, whole broilers -- found that two-thirds of birds tested harbored salmonella and/or campylobacter, the leading bacterial causes of food-borne disease. Findings show that most companies' safeguards are inadequate.

See this story on the web.

Susan Crandell, Julie Bain and Emily Chau, reporters

We wanted to do a cancer story that focused on the positive progress being made, telling real women's stories of hope and survival, commentary by top experts, and what looks promising for the future, too. We included stories of real women who have survived and thrived thanks to new targeted therapies. We talked to experts about the advances in new drugs and other treatments. We included a chart on declining cancer statistics with the help of the CDC; a sidebar on clinical trials, one on celebrity survivors, one on studies showing how humor and outlook can help survival, and one on potential new breakthroughs coming.

See this story on the web. 

Deadly Infections Douglas Podolsky, Senior Editor Nancy Metcalf, Senior Program Editor Kimberly Kleman, Deputy Editorial Director, Editor in Chief, Consumer Reports Abbe Herzig, Statistical Program Leader Jonea Gurwitt, Senior Researcher.

Computer-assisted reporting analyzed newly released hospital data to show that although some hospitals are doing an excellent job of protecting patients from often deadly bloodstream infections caused by large intravenous catheters used in hospital intensive care units, others are not. The analysis enabled the reporters to name the hospitals that are the top and bottom performers in 10 states where hospitals must publicly report their infection data. Far too many hospitals fail to lower the rate of these bloodstream infections despite the availability of a simple life-saving checklist proven to cut hospital-acquired infection rates to zero or close to it. The consumers union was then able to provide patients and family members with a list of steps they can take to protect against hospital-associated bloodstream infections.

See this story on the web. 

Douglas Podolsky, Nancy Metcalf, Kimberly Kleman, Christopher Hendel, David Schipper

This investigation revealed a striking lack of government oversight of the $26.7 billion dietary supplement market and identified supplement ingredients that have been linked by clinical research or case reports to serious adverse events, such as cancer, coma, heart problems, kidney damage, liver damage, or death.

See this story on the web. 

John Cloud

Enclosed you will find the first major magazine story to be published about epigenetics, the science of how environment can change genes, even in one lifetime.

See this story on the web. 

Paul John Scott

There are 285 million users of cell phones in the U.S. today, including millions of users under the age of 20, yet a growing body of research suggests that our complacency about their potential health effects is unwarranted. This article tells the story of brain tumor survivor Lloyd Morgan and his campaign to raise questions about shortcomings in the research finding radiation from cell phones to be harmless. It focuses on design problems in the largest study ever taken of the safety of cell phones --the multi-nation Interphone project -- the problem of scientific research produced by so-called product defense firms, the research suggesting that radio frequency radiation can indeed damage DNA, studies showing that children are uniquely susceptible to cell phone radiation and data out of Sweden showing that frequent users of cell phones under the age of 20 have five times the risk of developing two forms of brain cancer.

See this story on the web. 

Alyssa Giacobb and Maura Rhodes

Oral cancer was once practically unheard of in young women. Patients were nearly always male and over 50, heavy smokers or drinkers, or both. But this year, 25 percent of oral cancers will occur in women, and a quarter of those cases will stem from something that's historically lurked below the belt: the human papillomavirus (HPV). In "If You've Ever Had Oral Sex ... You Need to Read This," Alyssa Giacobbe investigates the link between HPV and oral cancer, and equips young women with what they need to know to safeguard their health. The story then goes a step further, with Maura Rhodes's investigation into the controversy behind a much-debated issue with "The HPV Vaccine: Risks vs. Rewards." Read this story on the web. 

Bryan Thompson, reporter.

The story explores why so many potential new treatments are never brought to market, and what federal authorities are doing to overcome these roadblocks.

Listen to the story on the web. 

Preventive screening in this country has always been a mix of science and big business. This is a dilemma neatly summed up by the story of one of the commonest tests out there: The colonoscopy.

Listen to this story on the web. 

Over the course of a year, KPCC's Julie Small interviewed state officials, prison medical experts, prison volunteers, inmates and their families, corrections officials and medical staff to determine if the quality of medical care in California's prisons is, as officials claim, "fixed." This investigation found: " While the overall number of deaths of inmates decreased, the number of inmates whose deaths might have been prevented with better care actually increased." Over five days in the week that started on Monday, Aug. 23, 2010, KPCC revealed its findings on-air and online.

See the story on the web.

Teresa Graedon and Joe Graedon, reporters

More than 100,000 people die each year from healthcare-acquired infections. Appropriate infection control procedures could cut that number dramatically. We speak with a MRSA survivor who contracted the infection during his work as a contractor renovating a hospital, and with a leader in infection control who has devised ways to prevent this tragedy. Dr. Muder's work at the Pittsburgh VA Hospital has been a model for infection control.

See the story on the web.

Jenny Gold, reporter

One in six doctors works for a hospital, and the number is quickly growing. Both sides benefit: hospitals get a steady stream of patients and doctors say they can practice medicine without worrying about the hassles of running a private practice. Last year, half of new doctors were hired by hospitals, according to the Medical Group Management Association, a professional organization for physician practices. Several factors are driving the trend. For some doctors, the recession is making it more difficult to run a small business, with fewer patients coming in for care and others unable to pay their bills. This story, set in North Carolina, illustrates the national trend by talking to two physicians/sisters  --  one who would never leave private practice and the other who wouldn't think of having a private practice again. The reporter also talked with hospital administrators, health economists and a new physician who chose to work for hospital right after graduation.

See this story on the web:

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Radio Part 1 

Radio Part 2

John Ryan, reporter

This KUOW investigation found 19 people earning more than $1 million a year at charities in the Puget Sound region. The charities are the region's nonprofit hospitals. The hospitals paid the seven-figure sums even as Washington state endured its worst recession in decades. According to the hospitals' filings with the Internal Revenue Service, another 59 employees earned at least $500,000.

Listen to this story on the web.

Reporters involved: Nick Young, Paul Farry, Bob Fuss, Peter Maer, Dave Barrett, Vicki Barker, Barry Bagnato

CBS Radio News provided complete coverage as Congress passed landmark health care reform. Not only did this report on what happened on Capitol Hill, but also gathered reaction and looked at how the changes affected Americans. In addition, this looks at hurdles that still face the legislation, hurdles that are still playing out at year's end. This entry includes section 1 (the first 4:31) of The "CBS World News Roundup."

Melinda Hemmelgarn, reporter

This 30-minute interview with Dr. Sandra Steingraber, biologist, cancer survivor and author of "Living Downstream," explores an often neglected cause of cancer: environmental toxins. She discusses the challenges and wisdom of applying the Precautionary Principle to our lives and public policy, the perceived higher price of organic food, and feelings of helplessness in a poisoned environment.

Listen to this story on the web.

Sheri Fink

This piece finds that, while the principles of triage may be well established in theory, they are exceedingly difficult to put into practice, particularly when it comes to implementing traumatic decisions that are likely to result in patient deaths. Soon after the January 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, reporter Sheri Fink realized that the situation would be a crucible for disaster triage, the process of prioritizing patients for treatment in an emergency. Health workers prepared to make these decisions on an intellectual level coped by keeping the whole truth from patients they believed would die; others attempted to enact heroic rescues.

Habiba Noshee, Andrea de Leon

Bone marrow transplants are often the only treatment for blood-related cancers. The treatment, however, is dependent on the patient finding a donor who shares a similar genetic makeup. In most cases, that means the match is found in someone of the same race. But as the story of Jennifer Jones Austin reveals, the black community has a particularly tough time attracting donors.

Listen to the story on the web.

Sarah Varney

Everyone loves a good scapegoat, and in the search for someone to blame for rising health care costs, the insurance companies have long held that exulted role. Under the health overhaul, regulators can limit excessive premium increases. But there are no such limits on how much hospitals  --  which account for one-third of all health care spending -- can charge insurance companies for medical care. And why should all that matter to you? As hospitals have consolidated into large chains, they've been able to set take it or leave it prices. And those prices get passed on to you. From Kaiser Health News and member station KQED, Sarah Varney reports.

Listen to the story on the web. 

Reporters: Patti Neighmond and Richard Knox

Every year about 17,000 US babies are born with a serious heart defect. Over the past two decades, medicine has made tremendous strides in repairing many of these congenital heart problems. This package of stories document striking progress in treating and even preventing one of the most severe congenital defects, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS. Babies with HLHS are essentially born with only half a heart. NPR's Patti Neighmond profiles individuals and families who have dealt with HLHS.

Carole Zimmer, reporter/writer

In March 2010, President Obama signed a comprehensive new health care law. Even before the legislation was signed, corporate America was taking steps to create a healthier workforce. In the first part of her series, Ms. Zimmer looks at what companies are doing to encourage their workers to get fit and bring down insurance costs. Part 2 of our report focuses on the 5,000 year old tradition of yoga and its development as a business. It examines whether the quest for profit has trumped spiritual pursuits and a focus on health.

Place: First Place

In 2010, PRI's The World reported from South Africa, Great Britain, Zambia and India to examine how other governments manage the costs of delivering health services to the public. Each country, with its unique economic and cultural environment, provided an opportunity to spotlight different approaches to the challenge of rationing scarce health care resources: explicit rationing by committee, rationing by cost effectiveness, unintentional rationing, and innovation to avoid rationing altogether. The series, the result of a more than half-year reporting and editing effort, was presented along with a website and opportunities for interaction via Twitter and online discussions. See the story on the web.

Judges' comments:

The terrific series addressed one of the hottest 2010 election topics in a different and fascinating way by looking at the realities faced in other parts of the world.

I was hooked by the first characters – doctors deciding who will get life-saving dialysis in South Africa.
It was clever to not start with the obvious – the much demonized British system – but smart not to wait beyond part 2 to address this country as well. Parts 3 & 4 were also very intriguing and the analysis in the final part was a nice way to button up the series without belaboring the points already made in the previous episodes. Great job.

Place: Third Place

If your child becomes sick or injured at school, legally there might be no one who can help them. In one Northern California school district, there is only one nurse for 14,800 students, 20 times more than the recommended national standard. This entry examines this growing concern by taking an in-depth look at some of the daily challenges facing school nurses, faculty and students. The program follows a credentialed school nurse over the course of an exhausting day visiting a dozen schools. It also looks at how telemedicine research from leading medical institutions is helping address this critical problem.

Judges' comments:

This is a vivid look at a too-rarely-covered topic: The shortage of school nurses. As the program points out, with more and more children in the nation s public schools with more and more serious medical needs, there are fewer and fewer school nurses to look after them. And that is a prescription for trouble. We particularly liked that this came from a local station, which took the time to produce this well-researched and thought-provoking entry.

In the absence of federal tort reform, states and communities are looking for ways to fix the medical liability system. This article explains to trustees how hospitals are using mediation, damage caps and health courts to tackle this issue.

Beginning in the 1970s, some hospitalized patients with schizophrenia began receiving drug injections that lasted for weeks in place of their daily antipsychotic pills. These extended doses helped them stick to their prescribed course of medicine but also carried the risk of causing irreversible neurological damage. This news feature, "Timing is everything", reports on how newer versions of such long-acting injectables might radically change the treatment of ailments ranging from alcoholism to diabetes.

See the story on the web. 

Kevin Daivies; Additional Credit: Allison Proffitt, Mark Gabrenya

"The $1,000 Genome" is a catchphrase that signifies the Holy Grail of DNA sequencing technology -- driving down the price of sequencing a complete human genome to the point it becomes as routine and affordable as an MRI. In the past few years, new technologies have dropped the price of a personal genome from $1 million (in 2007) to less than $10,000. Coupled with our rapidly growing understanding of the biology of complex diseases, and we are on the verge of making medicine more personalized and predictive.

These stories highlight some of the pioneers in genome analysis and the outstanding issues posed by the genome revolution: 1) Entrepreneur Hugh Rienhoff embarks on an inspiring effort to analyze his daughter's DNA for clues to her mystery genetic disease. 2) A group meeting in an English pub in 1998 plants the seeds for a new DNA sequencing system that has become the gold standard for genome analysis around the world. 3) The $1,000 genome is almost here, but what about the $1-million price tag that some doctors put on interpreting all that data?

See this story on the web.

Six of the seven U.S. states with the highest cancer death rates are part of Appalachia, and most of the other Appalachian states are not far behind. To improve cancer care in the region, investigators are leaving the ivory tower to learn the "why" behind the statistics and work with the community to develop the solutions. This type of collaborative approach is called community-based participatory research, and both patient advocates and cancer researchers are trying to harness its potential to improve cancer care in disadvantaged regions. This story highlights what researchers have learned and some of the programs that are now underway.

See the story on the web.

With the expanding scope of healthcare's HIPAA regulations, the use of social media within the healthcare landscape is a very debatable concept. This story covers the usage of the social networking site Twitter within operating rooms at specific U.S. hospitals. The legal and ethical ramifications as well as security concerns are also discussed with legal experts.

See the story on the web.

In this investigation into sports injuries, reporter Kevin O'Reilly discovered that the team physician for then No. 4-ranked Texas Christian University Horned Frogs came under heavy pressure from head coach Gary Patterson after he ruled a star player should be removed from a game due to a concussion. The doctor stood by his medical decision, but had to withstand Patterson's screaming at him "insanely" on the sidelines.

See this story on the web.

Daniel M. Keller, PhD and Eric T. Rosenthal

The series began with a review of the scientific literature on the efficacy and safety of proton beam radiation therapy (PBRT). This form of radiation therapy is relatively limited and very expensive but is gaining wider spread application to treat a variety of cancers despite the lack of scientific data to support its use. The journalists then interviewed multiple experts at leading medical institutions as well as others involved in the field. The authors found that a number of institutions were using and marketing the technology in lieu of proven and less expensive modalities. Experts were quoted as saying that some institutions were using PBRT for cancers that were more lucrative (easier and faster to treat), e.g., prostate, as opposed to ones with greater scientific support but were more time and labor intensive to treat, e.g., some pediatric, ocular, and brainstem cancers. This situation was further complicated by the institutional need to amortize the large debt created by building, training, and staffing these facilities that typically cost $150 million or more.

See this series on the web by visiting the Oncology Times hompage, keyword: proton beam radiation therapy series.

Joe Carlson

Hospitals' reliance on investment income to stay afloat has helped the industry maintain an unsustainable business model in which it doesn't turn a profit on its core business of patient care. The result is a vulnerability to economic downturns such as the Great Recession.

Tisha Thompson, Reporter; Rick Yarborough, Producer; Lance Ing, Photographer

Kids so out of control, you can't take them to church or the mall. But instead of blaming the parents or the kids themselves, WTTG-TV found the problem may instead be the popular drug Singulair. Even though its prescribed to millions of kids every year for stuffy noses and asthma prevention, this report finds there's been very little testing done on how Singulair affects children. Instead, a long list of behavioral side-effects like hyperactivity, depression and suicide has quietly been added to the drug's labeling, often without parents realizing it, within the last few years. This report also show how the drug maker Merck has strategically partnered with kid-friendly groups like Scholastic Press and the American Academy of Pediatrics to encourage doctors to prescribe the medication in spite of a growing number of parents who say the drug is hurting, rather than helping, their children. This isn't a story about children dying from a drug reaction. Instead, it affects many more kids who are falling behind in school and being incorrectly diagnosed with problematic conditions like ADHD and Turette's Syndrome because of a medication they probably don't even need to take.

See this story on the web. 

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Anchor; Roni Selig, Sr. Executive Producer; Caleb Hellerman, Senior Producer; Cristina Hernandez, Producer

Dr. Jack Kevorkian polarized the country with his controversial advocacy of assisted suicide. While many people recoiled from Kevorkian's approach, he focused attention like a laser beam on the struggles of terminally ill patients, an influence that forever changed the way medicine is practiced. Kevorkian eventually spent eight years in prison for helping to kill a patient. Free again and unrepentant, in the summer of 2010, he agreed to meet Dr. Sanjay Gupta at their shared alma mater -- the medical school of the University of Michigan -- to explain how he developed his unique sensibility and views on life and death. In a revealing, 30-minute interview, Kevorkian tells Gupta about his early days as a physician and defends his controversial legacy. He shows off some of his remarkable artwork and offers a profound glimpse of his bleak view on human nature. It's a sometimes funny, sometimes infuriating, always thought-provoking visit with a man who challenges our assumptions about medicine and the value of human life.

Jack Renaud, producer/videographer/writer; Dr. Jennifer Ashton, correspondent; Katie Boyle, senior producer; Pamela Auerbach, supervising producer; videographers: Tony Furlow, Paul Lederman, Matt Tyburski.

When the devastating earthquake struck Haiti last January, CBS News quickly sent its medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton to Port-au-Prince. But, unlike the other medical reporters in Haiti, Jen was embedded with the University of Miami medical team, actually working in the emergency tents and in the field...her reporting was on the side. For days, she worked and lived in the makeshift clinic in a remote corner of the airport. She administered IV's, changed bedpans, but also participated in life-saving emergency procedures (and others that didn't end as well). It all gave her tremendous insight into the plight of patients and struggles of the medical community&along with her hands-on medical work, Ashton assisted doctors from the Israeli Field Hospital in their initial in-country crisis assessments, and was the first national reporter aboard America's floating hospital, the USNS Comfort. (Our viewers connected with many of the cases on which Dr. Ashton worked and we felt it important to update the conditions, including on the 6-month and the coming one-year anniversaries of the quake) For the first 48 hours on the ground, producer Jack Renaud was Ashton's sole producer and videographer.

Place: First Place

This series looked at tobacco usage and obesity in China. In China 350 million people, including a significant number of medical professionals, light up on a regular basis. The country is facing staggering short-term and long-term health consequences. But as the country's sole manufacturer and seller of cigarettes, the Chinese government is reluctant to wage antismoking campaigns. Similarly, many Americans know obesity is a problem here, but few realize it's a growing concern in a number of countries where incomes, and Western fast food joints, are on the rise. The NewsHour's Global Health team went to China to report on the economic and cultural factors that are causing a surprising number of Chinese to become overweight. See the tobacco and obesity parts to this series on the web.

Judges' comments:

We loved this series- particularly the tobacco story, which had great visuals (the jewelry-store like settings where cigarettes are sold) that helped tell the story and lively writing (more smokers in China than PEOPLE in the U.S.) . It was also notable for what it didn t say but rather let the viewer recognize for him/herself: that China, with its government control over tobacco is today where the U.S. was not all that long ago.

Merrill Schweri, Producer/ Project Director; Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent; Denis Levkovich, Cameraman/Editor; Talea Miller, Reporter/ Producer; Catherine Wise, Reporter/Producer

To date, the United States has given $836 million to Mozambique for HIV programs. Millions are now living on lifesaving drugs purchased with those funds. But as a former Ambassador to South Africa said in our piece, the U.S. "is caught in this terrible dilemma." The funds are taking up "a larger share of not only of our international health budget, but of our total foreign aid budget. And when you try and slow that down, you're accused of condemning people to death." The number of people signing up for ARVs in Mozambique now outpaces the drugs available. When our reporting team showed up at health clinics, we found mothers waiting all day for ARVs for their young children, only to be told no drugs were available. This report asks the tricky moral question: Is the United States obligated to continue providing these lifesaving drugs when a worldwide recession means other countries and international organizations are reducing their aid? What is the ethical obligation of local governments to step up to the plate? PBS posed these important questions to President Obama's Global Aids Coordinator, Mozambique's former Health Minister, and HIV/AIDS advocates, while also giving voice to Mozambicans who face an uncertain future if ARVs run out.

See this story on the web.

Place: Honorable Mention

Rural hospitals across the nation have struggled to stay afloat. There are, of course, fewer patients in rural areas, and many of them are on public health insurance programs that pay far less than private insurers. Residents in Modoc County, in the remote northeastern corner of California, will soon vote on whether to tax themselves to save their local hospital. The county has gone broke trying to keep the hospital open, and a fractious debate has erupted in this proudly conservative, frontier community over the best way forward.

Judges' comments:

First-class job on weaving-together all the threads connecting a hospital to a community. Presented in a way that is easy for the listener to grasp. Good grass-roots explanation of economics and politics! of health care; unusual, clever and well-researched approach to the subject. Held my interest to the very end (hard to do for 8 minutes on radio).  

Place: Third Place

Current national debate around end-of-life care is focused on elderly Medicare patients. Arguments are rife around what the government will pay for at the end of life and how policies affect patients' medical decisions. But what about when children die? Federal reimbursement rules are no different for 5 year-olds than they are for 85 year-olds. Children cannot receive in-home palliative and hospice care unless they forego any life-prolonging treatment and agree to a doctor's prognosis that they have less than six months to live. In California, Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance, began testing a new reimbursement model in a pilot project that allows children in select counties to receive both hospice and curative treatments concurrently. This story looks at the project and the state of pediatric palliative care in California.

Judges' comments:

This is a topic that is almost never discussed. Kudos for tackling this heart-breaking topic in the first place. The story came to life with the children. It was sad and the little boy who was dying sounded so mature for his age. The story tugged at your heart without being sappy. Despite being such a sad topic - it's a reality some families have to face and I was not changing the channel until it was over.

Ground-breaking, insightful story. Excellent sound bites. Well-organized narrative, easy to follow and grasp. Fact-filled and well-researched, but emotionally moving as well. Poignant punch line (boy interviewed at length died before story aired). 

Place: Second Place

This series unfolds across three two-hour episodes and explores the human desire and struggle for happiness and the ways we can ultimately attain it. The first episode probes the nature of the social relationships that are the key to human happiness. The second looks at the obstacles to happiness – negative emotions such as fear, anger, anxiety and depression – and what we can do to cope with them. The final program uncovers new scientific research that is transforming our understanding of this most elusive of emotions.

Judges' comments:

This three-part documentary is a beautiful, watchable, ambitious look at the spectrum of human emotion and its scientific underpinnings. It s well-organized and well-explained, and lives up to the proud tradition of top-notch PBS NOVA episodes.

Place: Honorable Mention

Traumatic brain injury affects thousands per day, yet has no treatment, and receives only a small fraction of the funding allocated to much less common diseases. This is the story of TBI researchers who are making a last-ditch effort to transform the field, and the treatment that may be their last, best hope.

Judges' comments:

An important and timely topic, thoroughly reported with a nice narrative structure.

Place: Third Place

This entry reported that a widely published, influential researcher at Duke University had misrepresented his credentials, claiming falsely to have won a Rhodes scholarship and a number of lesser awards. These falsified stellar credentials helped the researcher in questions – Dr. Anil Potti – obtain millions of dollars in grants from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society. Other researchers were relying on his work and cancer patients were being treated based on his technology.

See this story on the web. 

Judges' comments:

An extremely thorough and dogged accomplishment of reporting with a remarkable outcome – the downfall of a well-established and regarded researcher, as well as the retraction of his major research. It also raised significant questions about the integrity among top brass at Duke University. It's clear the reporter's knowledge base and access to sources were critical in the success of this investigation.

Place: Second Place

The fourth in a series on epilepsy in cultural context, this entry looks at the state of epilepsy care among Native Americans, focusing on the often significant geographic and access-related barriers to care that affect Native Americans living in rural areas.

Judges' comments:

This story delved into one narrow problem – epilepsy among Native Americans – as a lens into the much broader issue of health disparities, and it showed us how multiple factors – from cultural bias to economics – can lead the health care system to fail certain populations. The story is well-written and includes thorough research and numbers so it doesn't rely on emotion for its impact, and yet there's still a palpable sense of outrage.

Place: First Place

This entry looks at long-term survivors of cancer who are at risk for late effects as a result of treatment received 10, 20, or 40 years ago. New research on long- term cancer survivors who received radiation as part of their treatment shows that radiation damages the cells in a way that creates the perfect conditions for heart attacks and strokes by clogging arteries. In addition, radiation can cause second cancers, and, for women who received radiation in the chest area for Hodgkin Lymphoma, there is a high probability they will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Judges' comments:

When the diagnosis is cancer, a patient can count on receiving the full attention of medical staff, family, and the most powerful tools in medicine. The all are bent to one purpose: eradicating the tumor and and the deadly threat within. If the cancer wins, the patient dies. But what happens when the patient wins? Cure's winter issue answers that question brilliantly, and hauntingly. In "The Cost of Living," writer Kathy LaTour explores the little known, dangerous after-effects of radiation therapy, some of which don't come to light until years after the cancer is declared in remission. The irony here: Many of these side effects wouldn't affect a patient unless he or she lived to a ripe old age, so a successful cure might mean a painful afterlife of health woes. Is the cure worse than the disease? The Cure helps us explore that vexing possibility.

This briskly told story manages to tackle a little-known topic – 'late effects' of radiation – with thorough, detailed reporting and compelling storytelling. And it deftly underscores a central irony –  that radiation can save lives but also shorten them. The piece also includes valuable information on what doctors and patients should be doing to minimize 'late effects; it doesn't t just lay out the problem but also solutions.

Place: Third Place

Kotler's piece looks at the underground world of psychedelic medicines, which have reappeared in the mainstream after a 30-year absence. It reports on the use of MDMA (ecstasy) to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as the use of mushrooms to treat what is known as "fear of death" (i.e., life) anxiety.

Judges' comments:

Steven Kotler artfully weaves the story of a dying cancer patient's experimentation with ecstasy and other illegal psychedelic drugs to relieve her pain and anxiety with an account of researchers who are conducting clinical trials of these drugs in an effort to provide an evidence base for them to be used legally for cancer patients and veterans with PTSD.

Kotler's reporting is impressive, most notably his ability to gain the trust of Mara Howell and her mother, who allowed him to be a fly on the wall in her last days as she was treated by an underground psychedelic therapist. He demonstrates a keen eye for detail and comprehensively traces the colorful history of psychedelic drugs in medicine, providing the context for the current wave of interest.

While he writes with a strong point of view, Kotler is careful to point out that the trials are still ongoing and to not cross over into advocacy.

Place: Second Place

In 2009 an unprecedented number of baseball players quietly went on MLB's disabled list for a publicly disclosed mental illness. This story not only asked why so many "injuries" occurred but provided an in-depth look at the sport's unique relationship with psychiatry and psychology from the men – doctors, players, coaches, executives, researchers – directly impacted and involved. One active player, Ian Snell, described struggle with mental illness and thoughts of suicide; another, the retired Bill Pulsipher, opened up about the maltreatment by his former employer, the Mets; and the sport's leading authority on psychology, Harvey Dorfman, admitted to not having any actual academic or professional training in the field.

Judges' comments:

Pablo Torre's inside glimpse into the ways Major League Baseball is changing its approach - and culture - in responding to athletes with mental health issues is a compelling fly-on-the-wall report on a topic rarely discussed inside or outside the locker room

Solid reporting. Insightful commentary. Inspiring human stories. They're all here in Torre's tale of the difficult struggles faced -- and overcome -- by the pro athletes at the center of the issue.

What distinguishes the piece is Torre's ability to provide a rare glimpse into one of the most exclusive Boys Club cultures in America: the MLB. He shines a light on a topic that, for decades, was kept hidden in the dark corners of pro ball. He chronicles how the few athletes who've been open about their struggles have coped, if not conquered, their demons. He also shows how league officials have accepted and addressed mental health issues.

 "A Light in the Darkness" offers a candid account of the moving stories of human tragedy and triumph. In so doing, Torre paints a portrait of the new face of the American Sports Hero. Nice work.

Place: First Place

The story chronicles how the author's father's last years were unnaturally prolonged by a pacemaker, and the perverse financial incentives within medicine that promoted his overtreatment. It wove together the personal story of the author's parents' lives and deaths with medical studies and investigation of Medicare reimbursement policies, cardiology treatment guidelines, and lobbying by the medical industry. It shows the sometimes intense personal costs of the technological imperative at the end of life, and it publicized the under-recognized risks of "living too long" thanks to a modern cardiac device.

Judges' comments:

Katy Butler's moving examination of the final agonizing years of her father's life – prolonged by a pacemaker – is both a compelling first-person account of her struggle to come to grips with her grief and a striking indictment of what is wrong with the American health care system.

In unflinching candor, Butler takes the reader into the world of end-of-life medical care, lending flesh-and-blood realism to the ongoing national debate on health care reform. Butler's piece is by turns touching and distubing, insightful and biting, compassionate and clear-eyed. She traces how a decision made in just a few minutes after a hurried exchange with a surgeon set her father on a course that Butler, her mother – and least of all her father – wanted. Even as his mind deteriorated, the pacemaker relentlessly kept him alive.

She delivers the story with an investigative reporter's eye for detail, a novelist's sense of pacing and a consumer advocate's talent for providing useful information to the reader. Many reporters have spotlighted gaps and flaws in the U.S. health-care system, but rarely with such eloquence and high-minded conviction.

The piece forces the reader to confront, compare and contrast the two end-of-life experiences of her parents – one good, one bad. Without overstatement or melodrama, she makes clear that the health-care industry should place a higher priority on quality over quantity of life in such cases. She artfully tracks the soft-money stream and financial interests that drive many medical and health-care decisions.

A winning combination of personal memoir, narrative storytelling and deep consumer reporting, "My Father's Broken Heart" should be required reading for any member of Congress who will weigh in on health care issues and Medicare this year. We feel certain Butler's mother and father would have been proud of the way she has nobly and ably characterized their struggles with their own declining health and the health care system.

Place: Honorable Mention

Making use of data never before obtained by a news organization, The Wall Street Journal was able to demonstrate how mining Medicare claims can expose waste and potential fraud in the $500 billion government health program for the elderly and disabled. A computerized record of every billing claim submitted to Medicare and every dollar paid out, the Medicare databases the Journal gained access to are regarded as the single best key to understanding the American health care system. The Journal showed how they can be used to contain the country's spiraling medical costs. In particular, the series turned the spotlight on the secrecy that cloaks information about individual doctors – a restriction that results from a little-known, 30-year-old court ruling – and how that secrecy allows physicians to abuse the taxpayer free from public scrutiny.

Judge's comments:

Mark Schoofs, John Carreyrou, Maurice Tamman, Tom McGinty, Anna Wilde Mathews and Barbara Martinez spent almost a year and a half prying Medicare payment data out of the federal government and digging through it, finding thousands of physicians enriching themselves at taxpayer expense through ineffective and even dangerous treatments, self-referrals, and kickbacks. But old-fashioned shoe leather-staking out two doctors' homes, for instance-played a part. And the series set off investigations by the SEC, the Justice Department, and the Senate Finance Committee.

Shining a light on a huge and largely hidden slice of the federal budget, the Wall St. Journal provides a public service and some troubling examples of abuse.

Place: Honorable Mention

Charlotte Observer reporters examined more than 550 SIDS cases over five years, finding that about two-thirds of SIDS babies were sleeping in risky situations that suggested the cause could have been suffocation. SIDS babies in North Carolina, the newspaper found, were often sleeping face down in a pillow, or in an adult bed piled with blankets, or with two or three other people who could have rolled over on the baby. Sometimes the infants were face down on sofas, or on their own parents' chests in a recliner. At least one baby died face down in the arms of a parent who had lost another infant in a risky sleep situation. And though the SIDS diagnosis isn't recommended unless doctors can exclude all other causes of death, reporters found 50 SIDS autopsies where the pathologists wrote notes saying they couldn't exclude overlying by an adult or other potential cause of suffocation.

Judges' comments:

If the message of this powerful ensemble series could somehow capture the attention of public health officials not just in North Carolina, as it did, but around the nation, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of infant deaths might be prevented.

A well-researched, well-written and nuanced series of stories that will no doubt save lives.

Place: Third Place

This series details the use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone by hundreds of New Jersey law enforcement officers and firefighters, who in most cases used their taxpayer-funded health benefits to pay for the substances, running up a bill in the millions of dollars. The series shows how deeply the substances have infiltrated law enforcement agencies and fire departments, endangering the users and, potentially, the public. Separately, the stories show how easily the substances can be obtained when a doctor chooses to abandon medical protocol, illegally churning out prescriptions based on phony diagnoses.

Judges' comments:

Amy Brittain and Mark Mueller's series about a physician who seemingly injected steroids into every cop and firefighter in Newark with a Rambo wish is a great read, original and deeply researched. But it is also worrisome. How many of our cops and firefighters in other towns and cities similarly put themselves, and those they are sworn to protect, at risk so they can muscle up? How many other physicians and pharmacists are happy to cooperate?

An original angle, good shoe-leather reporting and crisp writing add up to an eye-popping series of stories that impressed the judges.

Place: Second Place

Amy Harmon takes a close-up look at the testing of a melanoma drug whose targeted approach to cancer treatment is widely seen as holding promise. Told through the eyes of the doctors and the dying patients involved in the drug's clinical testing, it illuminates the scientific and ethical challenges of drug development in the dawning era of personalized medicine. And it shows just how much dedication and loss it takes to make even a little headway against cancer. The series ran in five parts over the course of 2010.

Judges' comments:

Amy Harmon spins out a rich tale of medical science and how it gropes its way forward to develop drugs that might add weeks, then months and then years to life. At its heart, though, this is a story about ambitious, passionate researchers who cry when a patient relapses; about terribly ill people who manage to joke through their fears when told their illness has returned; and about the altruistic force that compels a dying patient to drive hundreds of miles so a researcher can take a sample of tumor tissue.

A gem of a series. Ms. Harmon expertly reduced complex science into a compelling and moving narrative of resolve and suffering.

Place: First Place

Seattle Times reporter Michael J. Berens discovered that thousands of vulnerable adults have been exploited by profiteers or harmed by amateur caregivers in Washington's 2,800-plus adult homes. Elderly victims were roped into their beds at night, strapped to chairs during the day, drugged into submission or left without proper medical treatment for weeks. Owners even listed elderly residents as commodities in the sales ads for such homes. Berens also uncovered at least 236 deaths that indicated neglect or abuse in these homes but were not reported to the state or investigated. Further, the state excused mistreatment even when it knew that home owners had lied to its investigators, provided falsified medical records, or contributed to preventable deaths. The state, Berens discovered, had a hidden agenda: To reduce the state's Medicaid burden, caseworkers had to meet monthly quotas and relocate thousands of nursing-home residents into less-expensive adult family homes. The state may have saved millions of dollars, but many seniors were placed in inappropriate homes where they suffered harm.

Judges' comments:

Michael Berens' searing reporting on slipshod, superficial licensing and oversight of adult care homes in Washington State skillfully blends accounts of human suffering, attempts by state regulators to dismiss the seriousness of his findings, and dogged data mining. A shocking reflection of the co modification of healthcare generally and of those who cannot defend themselves in particular.

Michael Berens connects the dots between state workers assigned quotas for moving the most fragile among us into shark-infested waters, and the tragic consequences that followed. A fine example of why newspapers still matter.

Robert Langreth and Rebecca Ruiz

Thanks to stigma and fear of lawsuits, drug companies, psychiatrists and psychologists have systematically ignored suicidal patients. This story focuses on the small handful of psychologists and psychiatrists fighting against the odds to improve this dismal situation – and beginning to achieve promising results. They argue that it is not enough just to throw antidepressants at suicidal patients. Doctors need to target suicidal thoughts and impulses directly and teach patients coping techniques. They should test drugs for antisuicidal effects and not assume that all drugs that help non-suicidal patients.

See six Forbes blog entries that expand on the story:

• Medicine's Suicide Problem, Part 1
• Medicine's Suicide Problem, Part 2
• The Woman Who Stops Patients From Killing Themselves
• The Sick Patients Glaxo, Pfizer, and Lilly Refuse To Help
• The Military's Fight Against Soldier Suicides
• A Vaccine Against Suicide?

Angie C. Marek

In this story, SmartMoney reporter Angie Marek examines how and why doctors increasingly solicit patients. Marek describes the twin imperatives that drive doctors to market their services more aggressively: on the one hand, a revenue shortage driven by the recession; on the other, pressure from regulators and insurers to encourage more thorough preventive medicine and follow-up visits. In the article, Marek offers anecdotes that show how consumers respond to ad campaigns and robocalls; how frequent medical visits can create both benefits and complications for patients; and how some doctors tread uncomfortably along the line between marketing and medical practice. See the story on the web.

Robert Joiner

St. Louis has plentiful medical facilities and providers, two world-class medical schools and a thriving biotechnology industry. Reporting showed that many St. Louisans suffer from health maladies at a rate far greater than in other cities. Using these health assets as a backdrop, the "Worlds Apart" series examined the quality of life in several largely African-American and low income neighborhoods to show St. Louisans that where they live, as well as the availability of health services and facilities, can influence how long they live.

See the story on the web.

Place: Third Place

The story covers the rise and fall of an Indian kidney trafficking ring, illuminating the anatomy of the global kidney trade.

Judges' comments:

From the first sentence, readers are propelled on a chilling journey where a dying woman's desperate gambit for a new kidney leads to a thriving, global black market, centered in the outcast slums of India, where poor workers were tricked or forced to sell their organs. The author crafted a vivid, intimate narrative that dug beneath the headlines of a high-profile investigation to illuminate the many victims of transplant profiteers.

The whooping cough outbreak, which has sickened thousands of people across the country and killed 23, most of them babies, was declared an epidemic last year in California. KPBS and the Watchdog Institute investigated the epidemic and the disease itself and uncovered information that ultimately contributed to the launch of new studies into a more virulent strain of the disease. Between 44 and 83 percent of people in California who had contracted whooping cough had been vaccinated. Similarly high percentages were found in Ohio and Texas.

See the story on the web.

Place: Third Place

According to a report funded by the Department of Justice, roughly one in five women who attend college will become the victim of a rape or an attempted rape by the time she graduates. Many times, victims drop out of school, while students found culpable go on to graduate. The Center's investigation discovered that "responsible" findings rarely lead to tough punishment like expulsion – even in cases involving alleged repeat offenders. This piece examines internal campus proceedings that grow from two federal laws which require schools to respond to claims of sexual assault on campus and to offer key rights to victims. The Education Department enforces both laws, yet its Office for Civil Rights rarely investigates student allegations of botched school proceedings by students, largely because students don't realize they have a right to complain. When cases do go forward, the civil rights office rarely rules against schools, the Center's probe has found, and virtually never issues sanctions against institutions.

Judges' comments:

An issue that many thought had been dealt with decades ago.  Instead, the Center for Public Integrity found that students found "responsible" for sexual assaults on campus face little or no punishment.  Even more astonishing, research shows that repeat offenders account for a significant number of sexual assaults on campus, a fact contrary to what many collegiate administrators had believed.   In a lengthy series, with numerous journalistic partners, this series outlines how many women suffer a lack of justice.  The series has spurred reform both on Capitol Hill and college campuses nationwide.  In addition, the Center includes an online toolkit so other journalists, especially reporters at college papers, can investigate on their own campuses.  A stellar work of journalism leading to policy reform.

 Karen Barrow

A diagnosis of a chronic disease, mental illness or condition can change one's life in many ways. Patient Voices features first-person accounts of the changes, challenges and rewards patients face as they cope with various health issues.

See the series here.

Viji Sundaram

The story attempts to shed light on the way some OB/GYNs in the United States are exploiting the hunger for a male child prevalent in many ethnic communities, especially those in and from South Asia. Women are frequently coerced, overtly or subtly, to guarantee the prize their husbands desire above all else -- a son. Aware of this, a number of fertility clinics in the U.S. are helping women get around bans on sex-selection for non-medical reasons in Canada, India and most other countries. And they are parlaying this craving for a male heir into a fortune. Many fertility clinics in India work closely with their U.S. counterparts, preparing the women for the procedure in the U.S. Women's groups feel forcing women to produce a boy child is another form of violence. Recently, a women's support group in the Bay Area, determined to end the practice of gender selection, has launched a survey to determine how South Asians in the U.S. feel about it.

See this story on the web.

In 2010, disability advocates marked the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The law has made it easier for people with disabilities to take buses, go to movies, even vote. But the law was not a panacea. In this five-part series, Feibel explores the reality on the ground, talking with real Houstonians who cope with a disability.

See this entry on the web.

Linda Marsa

The profound impact global warming will have on our health is one of the biggest challenges we face today yet one that few are talking about. This story is one of the first to document the health effects that we're already seeing here in the United States because of a warming planet. This story also looks at possible solutions and the failure of government agencies to plan accordingly.

Emily Anthes

Over the last half-century, as scientists learned more and more about how women could safeguard their developing fetuses – skip the vodka, take your folate – few researchers even considered the possibility that men played a role in prenatal health. It would turn out to be a scientific oversight of significant proportions. A critical mass of research now demonstrates that environmental exposures – from paints to pesticides – can cause men to father children with all sorts of abnormalities. Drinking booze, smoking cigarettes, taking prescription medications and even just not eating a balanced diet can influence the health of men's future kids. In the several decades since Friedler started her work, the idea that chemicals in a man's environment can influence the health of his future children has, she says, "moved from lunatic fringe to cutting edge." So why don't we ever hear about it?

See the story on the web.

David Wolman

This story explores the ongoing mystery of autism and intelligence, and focuses on the research of one scientist whose work challenges previous findings about autism and mental deficits.

Place: First Place

New York Magazine's Mark Levine examines the systemic financial crisis facing the New York City hospital system. Levine documents the crisis, unravels its causes, and makes plain its implications. Millions of people use the New York City hospital system, and tens of thousands – a disproportionate number of them old, sick, or poor – are likely to lose access to quality health care if action isn't taken to address the system's fiscal instability.

Judges' comments:

A smartly written, meticulously reported account of how and why the bankruptcy and closing of an iconic New York hospital is an alarming reflection of the broader ills of the city's hospital system.  A self-described novice to covering the intricacies of health policy and the hospital business, the author nevertheless weaves in plenty of perceptive insight around the economic, political and medical forces that drive the dysfunctional health-care system far beyond the five boroughs of New York.

Peter Aldhous

Across the U.S., death rates among black women diagnosed with breast cancer are 37 percent higher than for whites, but in Chicago the difference is an astonishing 68 percent. Why does this heaving metropolis send black women to an early grave? Access to cancer screening and therapy is clearly an important factor. But it isn't the whole story. This article profiled an innovative research project at the University of Chicago, which is melding social sciences with cutting-edge molecular medicine to explore how fear of crime and social isolation in some of the toughest neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago may cause an overload of stress hormones that can change cell biology, sending tumors into overdrive.

Carl Elliott

Carl Elliott tells the story of a mentally ill young man named Dan Markingson, taking part in an AstraZeneca clinical trial at the University of Minnesota in 2004, who committed suicide. Markingson was  acutely psychotic; he was under an involuntary commitment order that required that he obey the orders of his psychiatrist; and his psychiatrist had recruited him into the study over the objections of his mother. Critics charged he had been coerced into the trial. Elliott looks at the ethical issues involved and the larger question: when is it ethical to recruit subjects into studies whose primary aim is to market a product?

Place: Second Place

This article is a journalistic examination, through one person's personal story, of the costs of end-of-life care.

Judges' comments:

With courage and candor, a reporter uses a daunting compilation of medical records, interviews with doctors and other caregivers and her own recollection to take readers on a compelling, bittersweet narrative of her and her husband's seven-year battle with his cancer.  End-of-life is often held up as a huge bucket of waste in the U.S. health-care system, and perhaps it is. But as the author and her husband rely on generous health-insurance, the hope of technology advances and the strength of their relationship to negotiate their "series of expensive last chances," few easy choices are in sight.

Christie Aschwanden

This story examines backlash against evidence-based medicine and argues that the facts alone will never change entrenched practices and in some cases efforts to debunk erroneous beliefs about health interventions may actually serve to strengthen them. For evidence-based reforms to succeed, they must be presented in a narrative that resonates with the existing belief systems of patients, doctors, and health policy makers. See an interview with the author about this story.

Jason Gale

"India's Diabetes Paradox" shows how the epidemic affecting more than 50 million Indians is holding back the nation as people ascend into the 400 million-strong middle class. Diabetes, a disease of overeating and inactivity, will kill 1 million Indians this year, even as a fifth of the population remains plagued by hunger. The reporter explains the paradox of how poor maternal nutrition primes developing babies for a life of deprivation. Then, as Indians rise out of poverty, their bodies can't cope with better food and less exercise. This hypothesis shoots down the conventional thinking that poorer people have worse lifestyles so they bring diabetes on themselves.

See the story and the video on the web. 

Fred Schulte and Emma Schwartz

This multimedia project assigned senior reporter Fred Schulte and staff reporter Emma Schwartz to investigate the federal government's plan to spend billions of dollars in stimulus money to help doctors and hospitals switch from paper records to electronic ones. The project drew national attention to challenges officials face in computerizing medical records from privacy concerns to questions about the safety of these systems. The team produced a mix of print articles, video and interactive elements to tell stories.

See the story on the web.

Place: Second Place

This piece used investigative journalism, computer-assisted reporting, statistical analysis and new media tools to break through a wall of bureaucracy and complicated data to tap meaningful information about local hospital care. The Sun's analysis of 2008 and 2009 hospital records identified cases of preventable harm, infections from lethal superbugs and accidental surgical injuries. In 356 of the cases, the patient died in the hospital. This information has never before been made public by any organization and is hidden from consumers throughout the United States. The Sun also exposed that hospitals have lobbied to keep this information hidden from consumers, and are not employing best practices to prevent the injuries and infections.

See this story on the web. Portraits | Complaints | Events | Infections | Surgical injuries

Judges' comments:

In a two-year examination of every in-patient hospital admission in Nevada going back a decade, 2.9 million in all, the Las Vegas Sun uncovered almost 4,000 cases of preventable harm.  In 350 cases, the patient died.  Over a week-long series, readers learned the personal stories of many of these injured patients and the hospitals where they had been treated.  The result of this gripping series?  Within weeks of publication, Nevada hospitals began sharing internal quality information with the public.  With user-friendly interactive tools available on the Sun's website, consumers can now see how their own hospital fares on many fronts – from hospital-acquired infections to preventable injuries.  An outstanding combination of computer-assisted reporting and quality story telling.

Place: First Place

Dialysis is a lifeline for almost 400,000 Americans, yet they endure some of the worst results for dialysis care in the industrialized world. One in four patients dies within 12 months of starting treatment. Those who survive often suffer high rates of hospitalization and poor quality of life. These stories showed that patients commonly received care in settings that were unsanitary and unsafe. Many incidents in which patients died or were injured in the course of treatment were never reported to – or investigated by – any outside authority. ProPublica came across another stunning fact: For years, the federal government had collected a rich store of data about the performance of each of the nation's thousands of individual dialysis facilities. Yet it had kept nearly all this information secret from those it might benefit most: patients. After pursuing this vital database for more than 27 months through reporting and Freedom of Information Act requests, Robin Fields succeeded in getting the government to release the clinic-by-clinic data. In December, it was posted in searchable form on ProPublica's web site, where already thousands of patients have used it to see how their providers compare to others.

See the story on the web and some of the data and graphics that accompany the investigation: Dialysis Facility Tracker
Inside a Dialysis Treatment
Compare Dialysis Facilities

Judges' comments:

A stellar piece of journalism. The series reveals that the results of dialysis care in this country are atrocious, despite enormous outlays by U.S. taxpayers. Great multimedia features, including one that lets readers check the quality of care at dialysis centers in their area.

This Tampa Tribune investigation of the 1979 Tampa Bay Buccaneers brought home a national story to this football-obsessed community: Generations of former National Football League players struggle with the long-term mental and physical consequences of the game they love. Reporters located nearly all 46 of the living members of that year's squad, and were able to conduct extensive follow-up interviews about their playing careers, injuries and current health.

See the entire project online at TBO.com, keyword, Broken Bucs. Here are some of the key links:
Special Report - Broken Bucs: '79 Players From Fame To Pain
The Tampa Tribune lead story
Graphic, comparing NFL alumni bodies to men their age
Graphic, NFL and health statistics of key Buccaneer players
Graphic, Anatomy of a concussion
Videos, Broken Buc stories and additional '79 player interviews

This three-part series looks at the epidemic of childhood obesity through one Massachusetts community, where 50 percent of all pediatric patients (most of them Hispanic) are clinically overweight. By interviewing health center doctors and community leaders, and following two families over the course of several months, the reporter tried to show the societal and cultural factors that contribute to child obesity, and to profile an evidence-based approach to addressing the problem. The series was designed to go beyond questions of broad social and nutrition policy and let listeners get to know the individual children and families who live with obesity – and to appreciate the emotional effort, social pressures, and economic obstacles that can make losing weight so difficult.

Place: Second Place

This radio documentary profiles a neuroscientist who has advanced treatment and research on autism, primarily because of his extraordinary devotion as a parent. Dr. Barry Gordon is a neurologist and a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University and a leading expert on memory and learning. When Gordon became interested in how human beings develop language, he never dreamed he'd have to confront it head on. His youngest son, Alex (age 18) is severely autistic and unable to speak. A dozen years ago, Gordon took an extended sabbatical from Hopkins to devote himself to research into his son's condition. With the help of an anonymous donor (who also has a similarly severely autistic child), Gordon has developed a full-time home based education program for his donor's child - resulting in some speech never thought possible in a severely autistic adolescent.

Judges' comments:

This was a great piece. It wasn't the first time I heard of an autism researcher pursuing this field because his own child was locked inside the world of these neurologic disorders. But it was the first time I heard a story, where researchers found the key to unlock one child's silence. As I'm sure many listeners were, I was hoping this method would help the doctor's son as well. I've covered a lot of autism stories, and this was a refreshing new angle, told in a very engaging way.

It was one of my favorites. Good use of sound bed and "nat" (natural) sound. Powerful use of words to draw pictures in the listener's head. This narrator knows how to use radio. This is a finely crafted story that took a lot of research (author's notes say it was years in the making).This is an amazing story and deserves an award.

Colorado doctors are required to disclose any health-related contracts that pay $5,000 or more a year in a publicly-available "physician profile" on a state web page. This includes promotional and educational work for drug companies. Colorado Public Radio checked the names of Colorado doctors in a database compiled for ProPublica's Dollars for Docs project against their state profiles to see how many were disclosing the contracts as required by law. It found that two-thirds of the Colorado doctors in the ProPublica database failed to disclose drug company contracts as required.

Listen to the stories on the web:

• Doctors and Drug Company Money
  
• Doctors Fail to Disclose Ties to Drug Companies 

Place: Honorable Mention

This series that aired on the national business show "Marketplace" looked at the reasons behind the growing costs of end-of-life care and how patients' options may change in the future. The first story explained why the "best" care at the end of life is not always the most expensive care. The story described how the breakneck pace of technological development has led to an over reliance on expensive interventions. The second story looked at how the conversation surrounding end-of-life care may change. A number of hospitals and other health care providers are creating palliative care teams to treat chronically and terminally ill patients. The hope is that palliative care may increase quality of life and decrease costs for the terminally ill. See the stories online:

• End of life care: More or less of it
• Better training for better end-of-life care

Judges' comments:

Another hot election topic – this one explained in a very rational and clear and compassionate way. It was the kind of crisp reporting that I would sit in garage for, listening to the end of the report.

Alan Prendergast

This look at the insurance industry's practice of rescinding health-care policies over various pretexts to avoid paying costly claims follows a particularly dramatic and significant case to its stunning conclusion. Jennifer Latham was severely injured when her car was broadsided by a meth dealer fleeing police; her insurance company refused to pay her hospital bills, claiming that she'd failed to fully disclose health information on an application submitted months before the accident. After four years of costly litigation, the case finally made it to a courtroom, where the insurance company's dubious handling of a brain-damaged customer and its relentless "bottom-line" approach to rescission were exposed, resulting in one of the largest punitive damage verdicts in Colorado history.

See the story on the web.

David Westphal and Lora Hines

This three-part series, a partnership between the Center for Health Reporting and the Riverside Press Enterprise, exposed a weak link in the health reform promise of expanding health coverage to millions. The front door through which everyone will pass, the county welfare office, is already under siege. The story showed how one California county, Riverside, chronically failed to enroll Medicaid applicants on time, ignoring federal mandates as well as state sanctions. But this has much broader application. If the social services office can't handle the current workload, how will it fare when millions more line up to be qualified for either expanded Medicaid or the exchange program? If California is any indications, county offices across the nation have their work cut out.

See the story on the web.

Place: Honorable Mention

This series examined challenges and possible solutions to providing health care in rural communities, mostly in Wisconsin but also in Kentucky, Montana, New Mexico and Tennessee. Critical access hospitals, the National Health Service Corps, J-1 visa waivers and other programs have helped ease rural health problems, but many obstacles remain.

Judges' comments:

The problems with rural healthcare have been written about for decades. What made this series special, however, is the way it segmented those problems and then offered solutions. The information was clear and accessible, and the series already appears to be triggering some action. Hopefully David Wahlberg will continue pursing this topic – he's providing an important service for his readers.

Place: Third Place

This is a four-part series about a neurosurgeon from Charleston, S.C., and his quest to teach brain surgery in the Tanzanian bush. The series examines the brain surgeon's motivations as a vehicle to explore the issue of how overseas medical missions create a culture of dependency in the very countries these missions are trying to help.

Judges' comments:

The writing in this series was just beautiful – anyone who aspires to do narrative journalism should definitely study this one. But more important than the writing was the deep thinking that went into this piece. While readers were surely beguiled by the tale of a brilliant, young neurosurgeon, they also came away with valuable insight into the difficulty of providing health care in developing countries.

Vernal Coleman

Fifty years of research and experimentation haven't yielded much in the way of a solution for the scientists working to create a male version of the birth control pill. But that hasn't kept University of Washington professor John Amory from trying. At the University's Center for Reproduction and Contraception, Amory and his small team of researchers work to engineer a viable birth control option for men that's less invasive than condoms or vasectomy. A widely accepted solution could help curb the global rate of infanticide and poverty. But even as scientists around the world work to create a viable product, questions linger over whether men would buy it. Among the doubters are many of the major pharmaceutical companies, the gatekeepers whose buy-in is integral to bringing any new male birth control product to market.

See the story on the web.

Place: Second Place

InvestigateWest showed that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not regulate exposure to chemotherapy in the workplace, despite multiple studies documenting ongoing contamination and exposures and their potentially lethal implications for human health. When nurses, pharmacists, technicians and, increasingly, even veterinarians, mix and deliver the drugs, accidental spills, sprays and punctures put them in close, frequent contact with hazardous drugs. These are drugs that can save lives of cancer patients, but ironically, are also human carcinogens themselves. The report documented, through FOIA's, that the federal government had cited a workplace for lax handling of chemotherapy agents only once in 10 years, despite ongoing and repeated studies that revealed workplace contamination was pervasive throughout the health care industry.

Judges' comments:

This series achieved the perfect balance of human emotion and investigative findings. Carol Smith grabbed us with the personal tale of a nurse whose death was likely caused by the chemotherapy drugs she gave to her patients, then shocked us with the news that the government does not regulate the administration of these drugs or monitor the health problems they can cause. Each piece was so clear and well organized that the message became a drumbeat: This shocking situation must be remedied.

Emily Ramshaw

When Texas health officials were sued in 2009 for storing infant blood samples without parental consent, they said it was for medical research into birth defects, childhood cancer and environmental toxins. They never said they were turning over hundreds of dried blood samples to the federal government to help build a vast DNA database, a forensics tool designed to identify missing persons and crack cold cases. A Texas Tribune review of nine years' worth of emails and internal documents on the Department of State Health Services' newborn blood screening program revealed the transfer of hundreds of infant blood spots to an Armed Forces lab to build a national, and someday, international mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) registry. The records, released after the state agreed last December to destroy more than 5 million infant blood spots, also showed an effort to limit the public's knowledge of aspects of the newborn blood program and to manage the debate around it.

See the stories on the web:

• DSHS Turned Over Hundreds of DNA Samples to Feds
• DSHS Wouldn't Sign on to Blood Spot Accord
• AG's Office Fires Back at Blood Spot Attorney

Joel Warner

"Bad Medicine" captures the dark side of Colorado's booming medical marijuana industry, exposing how CannaMed, the state's largest marijuana doctor's clinic and other medical services helping patients obtain marijuana IDs had been "selling" patients to dispensaries, taking advantage of loopholes in state law regarding medical evaluations and marijuana. Among other findings, the story also revealed that CannaMed was churning out new marijuana patients at a rate of 70 to 120 a day, that the company was allegedly using a physician's assistant to write medical marijuana recommendations and was selling temporary marijuana licenses that weren't valid.

See this story on the web.

Place: First Place

As they've done each winter for generations, residents of Chico, Calif., fire up their wood-burning stoves to stave off the cold. The stoves, and the smoke they produce, have come under fire from local air quality officials, doctors and pollution experts. They say the smoke can have serious health consequences for children, the elderly and those with respiratory conditions, pointing to statistics showing the county with among the state's worst rankings in lung cancer deaths and death from chronic lower respiratory disease. Many residents dispute the health evidence and insist that any attempt to limit their freedom to heat with wood is an unwarranted intrusion by government. The Center partnered with a group of Chico Enterprise-Record reporters to produce a four-day series that examined the fiery mix of politics, economics, local culture and science behind the debate.

Judges' comments:

This wasn't necessarily the most sophisticated entry we read, but it was so beautifully conceived and executed that we quickly decided to make it our winner. The writers had a clear mission – help local people understand that wood-burning stoves pollute the air – and were smart enough to know that their readers would be more likely to absorb that message in small chunks than in the lengthy pieces that usually win contests. All the key information was there, but in easily digestible form. This is local journalism at its best. (The series was so compelling, in fact, that when I remodel my California home I'm going to remove the fireplace. Honestly.)

Peter Aldhous

Peter Aldhous' beat involves reporting on the cutting edge of medical research in its wider social context, including health disparities, the influence of drug industry marketing practices, and ethical debates surrounding biomedical research.

William Neuman

Neuman's entry included coverage of the nationwide Salmonella enteritidis outbreak that sickened thousands of people and led to the recall of half a billion eggs from tainted Iowa farms. He looked at the failure of federal regulators to require vaccination of laying hens revealed that regulators relied on outdated studies and ignored more recent evidence supporting vaccine use. He delved into the history of egg farmer Austin J. DeCoster and showed that his farms had been linked with some of the earliest and the deadliest egg-related outbreaks. Neuman also showed that federal regulators have been slow to focus attention on a little-known group of toxic E. Coli bacteria now emerging as a significant cause of food-borne illness and he reported that an international salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds came from frozen mice sold to pet owners as food for snakes and other reptiles.

Marshall Allen

Allen's entry included an investigation into preventable errors in Las Vegas hospitals that found 969 cases of preventable harm, 2,010 infections from lethal superbugs and 710 accidental surgical injuries. Allen interviewed more than 250 doctors, hospital administrators, nurses, academic experts and patients and found some reasons behind so many errors. He also reported on a Chicago hospital that takes a radical approach to protecting patients and preventing harm and showed the resistance of Las Vegas medical leaders to change. From Austin, Texas, he reported on a meeting of patient safety advocates from across the country.

See the stories online:
"Why we suffer"
"How to put patients first"
"Local hospitals willingness to change culture would be a step toward better care, transparency"
"You can't kill my mother and get away with it"

Marilyn Marchione

Marchione's entry includes stories about:

• Some of mankind's most devastating inherited diseases are declining because more people are using genetic testing to decide whether to have children.

• The common and insidious problem of ordinary Americans getting too much radiation from too many medical tests.

• The expense of newer cancer treatments and the societal questions these newer treatments raise, such as how much a little extra time is worth and who should pay for it.

• A United Airlines pilot that Marchione met while writing about proficiency training at a cardiology conference who turned out not to be who he claims to be.

Rita Rubin

Rubin's entry included stories about:

• Genetic testing and how it could revolutionize the way doctors prescribe drugs.
• How doctors are using social media to connect with patients and the potential problems.
  
• Programs that will address the shortage of primary care physicians in the face of health care reform and the prospect of many more people entering the health care system.
• A look into whether doctors are keeping track of the rapidly developing field of genetic testing.

Liz Szabo

Szabo's entry included stories about:

• How, for the first time in history, people with Down syndrome are surviving into old age and the problems that can post for their aging parents, as well as what these genetically distinct adults are  teaching doctors more about the genetic roots of diseases such as Alzheimer's, which is nearly universal in older Down syndrome patients, as well as solid tumors and heart disease, which are virtually non-existent.
• How alcohol manufacturers are attempting to "pink wash" their images by marketing pink wines and lemonades during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in spite of the fact that alcohol is a known risk factor for breast cancer.
• The human cost of the recent anti-vaccine hysteria, with the perspective of the mothers of three children who suffered and even died from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Laura Ungar

Ungar's body of work is a four-part series:

• The Terrell Starks story is the conclusion of a project in which a reporter and photographer followed a man dying of sickle-cell disease. As he died, he taught others how to live.
• The lung cancer story, part of a year-long series on medical discoveries in Kentucky, looks at renewed efforts to fight lung cancer, which kills Kentuckians at the highest rate in the nation. The disease has consistently been under-funded despite the fact that it's America's biggest cancer killer.
• "Weighty Decision" looked at the controversy and hope surrounding obesity surgery as its popularity surges in a state with high rates of obesity.
• "Out of the shadows," reported from India, traces the efforts of a University of Louisville psychologist who is working to spark a "mental health movement" to reduce the rising rates of suicide in India.

Place: First Place

Lazar's entry included stories about:

• Antipsychotic medications given to patients in nursing homes and the risks for patients that have dementia.
• The impact of earlier coverage of this issue: state regulators and industry leaders formed a task force and launched an educational campaign to reduce the inappropriate use of the medications.
• An unintended consequence of Massachusetts' pioneering health care reform law.
• The widespread practice of no-bid contracts in the Massachusetts Medicaid procurement system and the $400,000-plus salaries of officials involved in the contracting process.

See these stories on the web:

• "Nursing home drug use puts many at risk"
• "Short-term customers boosting health costs"
• "Feeling him slipping away"
• "Medicaid contracts with UMass Medical School unit scrutinized"
• "Mass. aims to cut drug overuse for dementia"

Judges' comments:

Kay Lazar of The Boston Globe, for the range and depth of her health policy coverage, and its measurable impact. Her reporting on no-bid contracts for Medicaid and on "gamers" who exploited a loophole in Massachusetts' universal health coverage law exposed costly problems and drew responses from state regulators and lawmakers. Her reporting on excessive use of antipsychotic drugs in state nursing homes prompted regulatory review and new training. Her news feature story about a store owner with early-onset Alzheimer illustrated the impact of a devastating disease and the genetic testing quandary facing family members.

Place: Second Place

"House call doctor" highlights health-care reform issues such as end-of-life decisions and rationing of care. "Life-or-death coin toss" shows the emotional terrain that genetic testing holds. "Family's nightmare" illustrates the lack of treatment available for people with brain injuries. "Insurance cap" shows one family's experience with hitting a cap that health care reform recently eliminated for children.

See the stories on the Web:

• "Huntington's disease a life-and-death coin toss for family"
• "He makes house calls - and provides a sympathetic ear"
• "Beach family battles a disease - and an insurance cap"
• "A family's worst nightmare: Child with traumatic brain injury"

Judges' comments:

Elizabeth Simpson of the Virginian-Pilot, for her engaging, compelling use of individual case studies to illustrate major health policy issues, from genetic testing and the dilemma it poses (a Huntington's disease family) to the impact that the new federal health care law may have on individuals and families, both in abolishing lifetime benefit limits and exclusions of pre-existing conditions, and through demonstration projects testing less expensive, more humane delivery of care (illustrated here by a doctor whose practice consists entirely of house calls).

Melinda Beck

Beck's entry included stories about:

• Mounting evidence that many children diagnosed with multiple food allergies can actually eat some of those foods safely.
• The difficulty discerning ADHD in adults from the ubiquitous distractions of modern life.
• How budding psychotherapists often hone their diagnostic skills by studying fictional characters.
• How researchers are coming ever closer to being able to tell in advance which prostate cancers are likely to spread and which can be safely watched instead, which could spare millions of U.S. men from having unnecessary prostatectomies every year.

See a slideshow of a 4-year-old undergoing food challenge testing.
See an interactive sreening test of ADHD.
Match the movie clip with the psychiatric diagnosis.

Kirsty Barnes

BioPharmInsight.com reporter Kirsty Barnes is a specialist pharmaceutical journalist and her beat for Pharmawire.com and BioPharmInsight.com is to provide global coverage of key drugs moving through the pharmaceutical pipelines and undertake investigatory reporting to provide forward-looking news reports on material events involving these developmental drugs that shed light on how the material outcomes may impact the companies involved. Barnes' beat involves three expert areas of therapeutic coverage: cardiovascular disease, endocrinology/diabetes and anti-infectives.

Place: Third Place

Helfand's entry included stories about how insurance giant WellPoint Inc. posted an eightfold increase in profit in just three months. He followed this initial reporting with stories about flaws in Anthem's rate application. The math errors were uncovered by an independent actuary hired by the state and Anthem was forced to cancel its hikes. In the end, Anthem wound up delaying for six months and settled for about half of what it had originally sought – saving California consumers about $150 million in premiums. Anthem's president lost her job as a result and state regulators decided to examine rate applications submitted by three other major insurers.

Judges' comments:

Duke Helfand of the Los Angeles Times, whose stories about the huge rate increases that Anthem Blue Cross sought to impose on individual policy holders in California in 2010 had an immediate impact on the national health care debate at a critical juncture, vividly illustrating the problems faced by Americans who lack employer-sponsored health insurance. They also had a measurable impact in California, helping produce rate reductions for policy holders as a result of the work done by an independent actuary whom Helfand profiled.

Health care overhaul legislation -- and false and misleading claims about it -dominated headlines in 2009. These three pieces are representative of our work fact-checking claims made by politicians and third-party groups. Among our findings: President Obama greatly overstated how the legislation could lower families' premiums; conservatives falsely claimed the House bill encouraged suicide for seniors; and a third-party group pushed a twisted view of how the bills would affect insurance costs.

This three-part radio series was the culmination of a year of reporting on Massachusetts' foray into health reform -- a public policy experiment that has been in many ways a model for the national debate on health reform. The series shows consequences of the landmark 2006 law by profiling people and institutions most affected by the changes, for good and for bad, and by making complex policies understandable to the general population.

The stories are about the rampant financial influence of drug and medical device companies at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and with its doctors. The stories reveal financial conflicts of interest with the doctors and the medical school.

The first story examined the lucrative past health care industry ties of Nancy Ann DeParle, who was selected by President Obama as health czar responsible for health reform, including ties to the digital health records industry. The two additional stories examined other issues involving health information technology, including the planned spending of billions of dollars in stimulus money on electronic health records.

Children living in Pajaro Valley, a region famous for growing strawberries and lettuce, are growing up overweight with dietary choices a major factor. Hundreds of high school students eat lunch off campus, buying soft drinks and chips on a daily basis, a cheap meal, rather than bringing a sack lunch with fruit or vegetables or eating at the school cafeteria. Teens In Watsonville, with support from United Way, are seeking change, asking mom-and-pop markets to promote fruit instead of candy and soda, proposing to sell locally grown fruit to fellow students, and asking city officials to limit fast·food outlets near schools and add more bicycle paths to make bicycle riding safer for youths.

Kansas suffers from a shortage of primary care providers. New stimulus funds and other incentives have been made available to boost the number of providers in underserved areas. But those programs require a state or local match that isn't there. Kansas isn't alone - other states are also having trouble coming up with the required matching funds. Officials say such incentives are keyto medical care in rural and otherwise underserved areas, which often struggle with recruitment.

CNN told the story of Debbie Brown and her wheelchair. Medicare was billed $1200 for the purchase but CNN went right to the supplier and bought the same wheel chair for $349.

This article updates common wisdom about treating back pain. It helps the reader navigate a world of high-tech diagnosis and treatment, a world where the "best new approaches" may be driven more by big business than by medical healers. The piece offers concrete advice on how to find out if surgery really is appropriate and not just a "last resort," as it is so often presented in other articles. It also takes a hard look at the evidence for alternative approaches.

At 52 years old, Barbara's cancer treatment highlighted some of the best aspects of medicine - a deep and trusting connection with a caring physician and undergoing an esophagectomy -- as well as controversial aspects such as generalized screening tests for early detection.

This series of stories on dialysis treatment provided to illegal immigrants by a public hospital examines the dilemma a county hospital faces in providing this expensive, yet life-saving care.

Cancer drugs come with high price tags and uncertain benefits, yet a UK-style cost cap is unlikely to be put in place in the U.S.

In covering the county-owned MetroHealth Medical Center, Tribble has reported the hospital's failings and,in the end, motivated leadership to change its contracting procedure and improve board governance. Tribble was also the first to catch a social media trend when she reported about a national health insurance company's efforts to monitor customer comments on Twitter and the swift results Twitter users got. She also called out the region's second largest non-profit health system for failing to clearly tell patients about its charity care and for seeming to intentionally confuse customers about eligibility.

Economic, geographic factors make identifying the cause of cancer difficult to track, as does race. New technology is helping.

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas sits on the two committees in the Senate that have written the upper chamber's reform plans.

In the late 1990s the drug gefitinib emerged as a new means for treating non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer. But doctors found that some patients experienced a cancer relapse within a year of starting gefitinib treatment. For the past several years, scientists have been trying to understand why these patients lost sensitivity to gefitinib and seeking how to overcome resistance to the drug. In addition to developing new treatments for cancer, researchers also have to find ways to predict and track the evolution of cancer.

In his 40s, artist David Rosenak noticed a tremor shaking his right hand, the hand he used to craft his photorealistic paintings. Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Rosenak taught himself to paint with his left hand, preserving his art career and, brain scientists hope, helping keep his disease in check. Rosenak's story reflects the struggle tens of millions of adults with chronic disease face: how to adapt to the limits posed by an illness without letting disease define or destroy your life.

With or without health reform, reimbursements are tightening for hospitals. They have to learn how to not just become more efficient, but also improve the quality of care. We profiled a leading-edge health system that asked the hard question: Could we survive on Medicare payments alone? They looked at every service as if they were only paid Medicare dollars and found extreme clinical variation among its nine hospitals. A plan was put in place to improve operations.

Reporter: Liz Welch; Deputy editor: Wendy Naugle; Editor-in-Chief: Cindi Leive

Liz Welch found that the most dangerous health risk associated with an abortion-one of the most common and safest medical procedures in the United States-is the stigma that surrounds the procedure.

The reporter explores the numbers, issues and causes behind a local obesity epidemic.

Lisa Collier Cool, author; Alison Brower, Executive Editor; Stacy Morrison, Editor-In-Chief

This story illustrates the perils, promise. and importance of participating in clinical health trials through four stories of women who did so, to varying results. A sidebar outlines ways that readers can enroll in trials, or get access to experimental, possibly life-saving-medications even if they don't.

The series examines the impact of HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes, stroke, kidney disease and other illnesses on the African-American community. Celebrities – such as Howard Hewett, Cicely Tyson and Alonzo Mourning – spoke candidly about their experiences with some the above mentioned health issues. Doctors and experts also tackled topics – such as racial and ethnic disparities in health care, the rising costs of treating diabetes and other diseases – as well as prevention and healthy living.

Chris Brooks, just 22 and a few month from college graduation, died of sudden cardiac arrest. His heart stopped ... he drew no breaths. But in his case, it turns out that death was reversible. About 20 minutes later he came back to life. "Another Day" explores the research and cases that are re-defining death.

The AP went behind the scenes for six weeks as a Georgetown University Hospital team put together what turned into a record-setting 13-way kidney exchange. Documenting the complex logistics provided an opportunity to go beyond the operating room drama of a swap and explore the increasing problem of highly sensitized patients, people who never would qualify for a traditional transplant, as well as racial and ethnic disparities in kidney transplants.

Drew Griffin; Producer: David Fitzpatrik; Associate Producer: Guy Azriel; Editor: Wendy Tennery

A CNN investigation tracked the underground network of organs for sale throughout the world with surgeries taking place even in some of the most prominent hospitals in United States.

Jen Matlack, author; Alison Brower, Executive Editor; Stacy Morrison, Editor-in-Chief

This story sheds light on the taboo. rarely-discussed issue of pelvic floor disorders such as stress, urinary incontinence, and uterine prolapse. According to a recent study In the Journal of the American Medical Association, one in three women suffer these disorders even as early as in their 30s, and even if they have not yet given birth.

Place: First Place

While there is no cure for the disease, The Alzheimer's Project shows that there is reason to be optimistic. This multi-platform series looks at groundbreaking discoveries made by the country's leading scientists, as well as the effects of this debilitating and fatal disease on those with Alzheimer's and on their families.

Place: Second Place

The stories highlighted loopholes in Florida law that make it possible for convicted drug smugglers and doctors with histories of major disciplinary problems to open cash-and-carry pain clinics in Palm Beach County. The stories outlined what other states do and what Florida doesn't do to combat overdose deaths, and revealed that state regulators often are hindered in making cases against problem doctors by poor communication and heavy workloads.

Place: Second Place

Many health care stories throw out the figure that 30 percent of all medical spending is wasted. But they almost never delve into specifics. Exactly which operations, medical devices, and drugs are overused or ineffective? Robert Langreth shows how a huge percentage of the spending on knee surgery, stents, CT scans, and schizophrenia drugs is wasteful and potentially harmful.

This package helps readers understand the role genetics (and all the genetic discoveries that have been made of late) play In their health, through worksheets, reported boxes, and online resources. The bottom line: Knowing your family's health history is the best predictor of future disease, even more so that taking expensive genetic tests.

From FDR's call for a social insurance system that would extend "cradle to grave" to George W. Bush's Medicare prescription drug plan, successive presidents have tried, each in his own way, to improve the nation's health care system. Now it is Barack Obama's turn. This story set the stage for 2009's year-long debate on health reform.

The main focus of this issue concerned recent developments in the application of mobile technologies in global health research. This is particularly significant as many low-income countries are leapfrogging over computers and moving directly to hand-held devices for communication and access to information.

The federal government has earmarked $1.1 billion to create a process for comparing medications, devices and treatments. The goal: research focusing on "real people" in the "real world."

Dr Sanjay Gupta; David Martin, Caleb Hellerman, senior producers; Tim Langmaid, Executive producer; Producer; Saundra Young, John Bonifield producers; Joe Stern, video editor

Dr. Sanjay Gupta follows the lives of four addicts for one year who have been through rehab as they try to maintain their tenuous hold on sobriety. Researchers now call addiction a brain disease. Using the latest imaging techniques, they can show how addition affects the brain.

Writers: Lindsay Renick Mayer, Michael Beckel and Aaron Kiersh

Editor: Dave Levinthal

The "Diagnosis: Reform series, in its 30 parts, explored the influence of political money and the federal government's debate over health care reform. The series found that the companies more affected by federal health reform had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the political system and into politicians' campaign war chests.

An examination of how prepared the U.S. is to cope with any major health emergency.

At What Price? looks at the whether health care reform proposals would be affordable for the public.

Home and community based services in Kansas are dependent on attendant care workers who, typically, are paid fast food wages. The scenario has the attention of the Service Employees International Union.

Liz Welch

Glamour's Liz Welch reported on women's health issues such as abortion, prescription drugs and domestic violence.

Shaun Dreisbach

"The Health Truth About Your Favorite Foods" was an investigation into some of the ingredients in foods young women eat most. Dreisbach determined from grocery industry research and reader surveys that some of the most common food items women buy include yogurt, chips, frozen dinners, microwave popcorn, soda, breakfast cereals, nutrition bars and meats like ground beef. Next she delved into the ingredients lists of some of these foods, finding out exactly what some of the most common additives are, what their purpose in the food is, what other types of products they're used in and what possible health effects they may have.

Charles Bankhead

Hurricanes can cause untold damage, some of it to the very facilities that ought to be caring for the injured. And sometimes it takes years to recover. MedPageToday chronicled -- in words and video -- the state of the iconic University of Texas Medical Branch a year after Hurricane Ike shut down that Galveston facility and the four-year transformation New Orleans healthcare has gone through post-Katrina.

Robin Mohr

A growing body of scientific research indicates there may be physical health benefits to laughter, including a positive effect on blood vessels, muscles, stress hormones and blood sugar. It's also an effective coping mechanism for patients with a grim diagnosis. A handful of hospitals have begun teaching their staffs about the benefits of laughter therapy and now offer laughter therapy classes for patients.

Place: Second Place

This project, jointly produced by Kaiser Health News and NPR, profiled nine types of consumers and explored the impact Congressional health bills could have on their lives. Each example included a radio story aired on NPR, a policy "explainer" written by a KHN reporter, a video or slide show and still photos.

Place: Third Place

The recent controversy over the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's guidelines for the use of mammography for women in their forties underscores the difficulty patients and physicians have with understanding – and accepting – the limitations of cancer screening. Six months before the USPSTF's recommendations were published, this story in Reader's Digest walked readers through the tradeoffs involved in mammography and a number of other cancer screening tests.

"Shots in the Dark" looked at the science behind U.S. flu policy. This story uncovers the shaky evidence base that has been used to formulate public policy on the use of vaccine and antivirals against seasonal flu and flu pandemics. It makes the case that the nation should invest in critical studies that would show how effective these remedies are, and for which members of the population.

Catherine Arnst

In covering the health care reform Arnst focused on the cost issue: The damage ever-escalating costs is doing to the economy and wages, the reluctance of Congress to address this issue, and possible solutions.

Carolyn Park

Two of the stories in this entry tell personal stories of people touched by trauma and how their lives might be different had a more coordinated and efficient way of handling serious injury existed. The third story covers an important first step in the creation of the trauma system - determining which hospitals qualify for which level of trauma care.

Laura Newman

Taken together, these stories highlight issues of overuse in medicine and show trends in some of the medical professional societies to embrace evidence-based medicine. The third story reflects the volatility of evidence-based medicine recommendations in the face of health reform and presses for independence in USPSTF.

Reporter Melinda Beck writes a weekly consumer health column for The Wall Street Journal. Her selections for this contest include stories on the following: Why you should be skeptical about observational studies; the origin of the Apgar score for newborns; silencing your "inner critic;" and a tongue-in-cheek proposal for two new medical journals detailing obvious findings and extremely obscure findings.

Place: First Place

Las Vegas Sun reporter Marshall Allen chronicles a hospital privacy leak, doctor pay fraud, hidden obesity surgery costs, and a surgery to cure epilepsy.

Childhood obesity is one of the biggest health problems in our country. Kids and teens are the target audience for one of the hottest trends in fitness right now – video games that promote exercise, such as Dance Dance Revolution and the Wii.

Reporters followed one patient, Becky Fuller, from the days before her surgery in November 2006 for more than two years. Due to a severe accident, in which one side of her body was crushed, Fuller had to have her elbow joint replaced – a relatively rare type of joint replacement surgery.

These projects focus on causes, conditions and concerns of heart disease; fitness, nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle. The projects encompass multimedia capabilities and continue to grow as the publication adds local, state, national and world news related to the topics.

Shelley Wood

Following a 2002 study which found that taking daily aspirin was likely a good way to prevent a heart attack or stroke, aspirin was widely marketed to mostly healthy people. Early in 2009, the same group of scientists published an updated analysis, concluding that any benefits of aspirin in preventing heart attack or stroke are likely counterbalanced (and possibly outweighed) by an increased risk of bleeding. Some experts now believe that physicians just are not hearing the "new" news about aspirin and that potentially millions of Americans may be at risk.

Minnesota Public Radio reporter Lorna Benson covered the H1N1 flu vaccination beat in real time as concerns over vaccination emerged.

John Fauber

This story probes the different ways in which physicians, researchers, medical organizations, drug and device companies, and medical journals are grappling to improve the way real or potential conflicts of interest are disclosed.

Jeffrey Weiss

Articles explained how the H1N1 vaccine distribution would be different than the system used for seasonal flu - and that many people would not be able to get it from their normal doctor, as well as the science of H1N1 and flaws in the state's vaccine allocation.

Place: First Place

In recent years a growing number of trauma surgeons and have begun to question the social value of saving the lives of gunshot victims who wind up back in the ER a year or two later with similar injuries. Yet hospital administrators in communities besieged by violence limit their concern to the problems within their four walls. Although hospitals' tax-exempt status carries a mandate to provide real benefit to their local communities, many are running programs like anti-obesity clinics while leaving the problems of urban violence to the police and courts.

JoNel Aleccia

Key stories focused on issues in the news, including food safety and health reform, but they also chronicled little-known aspects with the potential to affect consumers. Issues covered included the deadly salmonella outbreak in peanut products, the growing shortage of primary care doctors, ciguatera fish poisoning and skyrocketing air ambulance fees.

Bloomberg News reporter Jason Gale began covering swine flu on April 23, when he linked seven cases in the U.S. to an unusual outbreak of respiratory disease in Mexico that heralded the world's first influenza pandemic in 41 years. He stuck to the beat for seven months, writing, editing and contributing to more than 300 Bloomberg News stories on the contagion, detailing its emergence, worldwide spread, social and economic impact, severity, ability to cause potentially deadly disease, and the vaccines, medications and equipment aimed at fighting it.

This series exposed an unethical study involving open heart surgery patients conducted 10 years ago at Columbia, a study that an anonymous source and former federal regulator has called, "the worst instance of unethical research since the Tuskeegee Study." The Huffington Post examines why and how this study operated and explains its ramifications for the public.

These four stories dig into the underlying policy implications of health care reform proposals in Washington in 2009. They examine critical issues of affordability, cost controls, system capacity and lessons learned from the Massachusetts near-universal health care experience. These stories all brought to light important concerns that had not been sufficiently addressed at the time.

Peter Aldhous

Aldhous' body of work is about the cutting edge of biomedical science and its implications for the future of health care and society at large. The selected stories reflect the reporter's particular interests in mental health and genetics/personalized medicine.

Stories include a piece discussing whether a New Jersey hospital should be built when it meets challenges from health reform, an article on the amount of protection Americans receive from health bills, a comparison between California Health Reform (or lack thereof) and Obama's national plans, and an interview Dr. Richard "Buz" Cooper, who challenges respected research on hospital and health care spending.

Jailed on a misdemeanor traffic violation, a 23-year-old Vermont woman died because she was denied the prescribed medications she needed to stay alive. The state consigned her life to a for-profit company, Prison Health Services. The details of the case reveal a fundamental conflict: Privatized prison health thrives by cutting costs and services, while sound inmate and public health care principles demand that careful medicine come before profit.