For a story about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, Donald G. McNeil Jr. traveled to the headwaters of the Ganges, in the Himalayas, and accompanied scientists as they moved downstream, testing the waters to discover where and how the river becomes tainted. Because the Ganges begins as a relatively pristine waterway, it offers stark lessons about the ease with which humans transmit bacteria that are all but impervious to antibiotics.
McNeil followed a Canadian medical mission through rural Ugandan villages as doctors used a small, rugged ultrasound scanner to diagnose pneumonia, cancer and even scrofula. His was the first description of the device in non-medical literature, and it showed readers in vivid detail how important the tools we take for granted can be in poor countries.
The story about a new drug combination for XDR tuberculosis, which was once a death sentence, was an exclusive. McNeil took readers inside a TB hospital in Johannesburg where the new regimen was tested and then to nearby townships where former patients described cures that seemed almost miraculous.
McNeil also broke the story about the sudden end of the government’s PREDICT program, which enabled scientists to search for animal viruses that may one day infect humans. The program’s accomplishments included discovering a novel Ebola virus and training hundreds of foreign experts to do animal and bird surveillance in their countries. But a former director told Mr. McNeil that PREDICT had fallen victim to overcautious bureaucrats, and public health experts were alarmed that it had been allowed to expire.
As a measles outbreak spread among Orthodox Jews in New York, McNeil traced its origins to an annual religious ceremony in Ukraine that some called “Hasidism’s Burning Man.” The piece lent essential context to an unfolding health crisis and showed how gaps in vaccination make it possible for the virus to spread globally. (McNeil was one of the leaders of the Times’s coverage of the measles outbreak. One companion story explained why vaccines are endorsed by Jewish, Islamic and Roman Catholic religious authorities even though they do contain trace amounts of forbidden substances. Another traced the public health history that allowed New York’s health authorities to fine parents who refused to vaccinate their children.)