John Lauerman covers public health and basic science for Bloomberg, including the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. John has written major stories on the beat this year, detailing the ongoing effort to fight HIV and the unexpected spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
The first story notes how a new U.S. government plan to test everyone for HIV could seriously hamper care at small AIDS clinics throughout the country which have seen their funding cut in recent years and which frequently run on a deficit. He focused on a clinic in Alabama and, using the CDC’s own figures, suggested the new rules may add more than 1,000 clients even though they will not be able to add staff. Lauerman’s story was the only one nationally to note the impending storm, which is now just beginning to play out.
John also was the first reporter nationally to highlight three new drugs for AIDS patients that promised to spark a second revolution for the AIDS community, and particularly to a large population of longterm patients whose disease was resistant to all existing drugs. That story, using a strong anecdote from a patient desperate for help, was co-bylined with a Bloomberg TV reporter so it can’t be included in this category. But it’s been nominated for in the “Large Newspaper and Wire Services” story and should be considered in viewing John’s strengths as a beat reporter.
The second story in this category profiles the toughest TB program in the country in Florida as a comparison to a weak U.S. system. The federal government allows people infected with evens multiple-drug resistant form of the disease to travel on public transport, potentially infecting hundreds of people. Ifother programs had the same controls as Florida’s, Lauerman wrote, that might have kept Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker from exposing passengers to TB in May when he flew internationally, and then drove back to the U.S.
“The ……Merck AIDS Failure” story was the first to sound the closing bell on a decades-long, worldwide search for an AIDS vaccine. The report showed that the weaknesses seen in Merck’s experimental vaccine exists in all others being developed.
See the archived story and contest questionnaire about how this story was written.