Provide names of other journalists involved.
Principal author: Donald G. McNeil Jr. Editor: David Corcoran. Designer: Peter Morance.
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Sept. 27, 2011
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
In contrast to so much of what we think we know about modern medicine– that it relies on hugely sophisticated diagnostic equipment and ruinously expensive drugs, available mainly to society’s haves — there are many affordable interventions that can be delivered cheaply throughout the developing world. And the reason they are not saving more lives is simply that they are not more widely known.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Most of the articles were based on interviews, not documents. Although, of course, most of the people interviewed were scientists and had written many peer-reviewed journal papers about their work. I read a lot of those and I’m sure other reporters did too. There were no FOI Act requests or anything like that I’m aware of.
Explain types of human sources used.
Face-to-face interviews with doctors, nurses and patients in Thailand and Mozambique. Face-to-face or telephone interviews with doctors using new inventions, adult inventors (mostly university professors of chemistry or other sciences), student inventors, executives of corporations created to develop these inventions. Also executives of foundations supporting the work, such as Gates Foundation officers.
Results:
On its blog Innovations, the World Health Care Congress praised the section as “fascinating” and said the proposed solutions displayed “amazing imagination and ingenuity.” On the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, the veteran science writer Charlie Petit put it this way: “Wow. If Science Times’s editors told me they had a special issue coming up on medical care in nation’s saddle by poverty and lack of infrastructure, I’d think how worthy and how very dull.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
There was one correction, on the short article “The Life Wrap.” Correction: November 1, 2011, Tuesday This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: A brief article on Sept. 27 about a garment that can be wrapped around a woman’s legs and torso to slow hemorrhaging in childbirth misstated its price and the home of Zoex, the company that makes it. It is $295, not $259, and Zoex is based in Coloma, Calif., not Ashland, Ore. (The company pointed out the errors in an e-mail on Thursday.)
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
. Save string for years. These ideas don’t all pop up at once. And call enough experts to verify whether a new idea is actually useful and affordable. A lot of junk comes in over the transom. (My favorite example is the “photonic fence,” a very cool hi-tech wide-field-of-view camera with a computer that can detect mosquito wingbeats and distinguish them from those of other insects and a laser for shooting mosquitoes in mid-air. It’s designed to protect a portion of an African village. They allegedly cost $10,000 each, are sensitive to dust and require electricity and skilled maintenance…).