All stories were written by Sue Ambrose, Staff Writer, The Dallas Morning News. 1. West Explosion, One Year Later: Official toll overlooks many injuries. 2. Uncounted Casualties. Profiles of three men with uncounted injuries from West explosion. (Video embedded online.) 3. Lessons don’t always stick after Ebola outbreaks. 4. When Ebola hit U.S., CDC guidelines were weaker than those 15 years ago. I am an investigative reporter with a specialty in science and medicine. These stories have a common thread: By delving into published medical research, I identified shortcomings in how health experts either responded to or prepared for two recent threats to public health in Texas: The fatal explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, and the Ebola crisis in Dallas. In West, state and local health officials were slow to document injuries from the explosion that killed 15 and injured hundreds. When they did, their investigation — which focused on physical injuries –was incomplete. The survey also completely ignored mental health issues. On my own, I identified uncounted injuries and pushed the number of injured people from about 260 to more than 300. A sidebar, with an embedded video that’s viewable online (see link in pdf) describes three men with uncounted injuries. When Ebola hit Dallas this fall, local officials assured citizens that they could treat the disease safely, thanks to the country’s modern healthcare system. I found that the initial misdiagnosis and subsequent infection of healthcare workers that occurred in Dallas was eerily similar to past outbreaks in rural Africa. I also found that the CDC guidelines to protect medical workers were weaker when the Dallas patient was diagnosed than they had been 15 years ago.
