“1. “The end is near – for cigarette smoking? A growing number of experts think so.” AP wire, February 9, 2014. For many decades cigarette smoking has been the leading preventable cause of death in America. This analysis/enterpriser examined a widely-overlooked assertion by health officials that the days of cigarette smoking in the Unioted States are numbered. The article looked at how that might be achieved, and why some experts say it will never happen. 2. “Forgotten vials of smallpox found in storage room.” AP wire, July 8, 2014. Breaking news story about how a government scientist cleaning out an old storage room found forgotten vials of smallpox – one of the most lethal diseases in human history, which was declared eradicated in 1980. The discovery was one of a series of breaking news reports by Stobbe that highlighted safety problems at government laboratories. Contributing to this report were AP staffers Marilynn Marchione and Maria Cheng. 3. “Virus probed in paralysis cases in 9 US kids.” AP wire, September 26, 2014. Stobbe was the first national reporter to break the news that a respiratory illness that had caused unusual outbreaks over the summer was now being linked to cases of paralysis in some children. By year’s end, health officials would receive reports of paralysis in 94 children in 33 states, with link still under investigation. AP staffer Thomas Peipert contributed to the report. 4. “No, a surgeon general couldn’t stop Ebola.” Politico magazine, October 20, 2014. Stobbe was heavily involved in the AP’s coverage of the Ebola epidemic of 2014, bylining dozens of national stories on the topic (including breaking news about the first time Ebola patients were brought to the United States). But this article, written for Politico magazine, was a much longer piece that looked at complaints about how the U.S. government was responding to Ebola and whether the absence of a surgeon general was hurting the country in this situation. It included information from a book by Stobbe published earlier in 2014.”
