I have reported on health for most of my career. My work as an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register exposed problems with the fertility industry, the trade in human body parts and the use of illegal drugs in sports. I helped create a first-of-its-kind report card judging hospitals on a wide array of measures for a story that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I was one of the lead reporters on a series of stories about lead in candy, a series that also was a finalist for the Pulitzer.For the Center for Health Journalism (previously known as Reporting on Health), I have written about investigative health reporting and occasionally broke news on my column, Antidote. I also was the project editor on the Just One Breath collaborative reporting series.  These days, for the University of Washington, I now work as the Executive Director for Insitutue for Health Metrics and Evaluation's Client Services, a social enterprise. You can follow me on Twitter @wheisel.

Articles

Everybody Hurts: Budget Woes a Poor Excuse for Ignoring Drug Abuse

California says it will take millions of dollars to kick start and run a useful database to track prescription drugs. For now, the program appears like a knight hunched over his computer surrounded by stacks of documents, fighting a losing battle against the dragons of painkiller abuse.

Everybody Hurts: Powerful Prescription Database Languishes

Just three years after California Attorney General Jerry Brown – now the governor – announced a newly improved prescription drug tracking system while standing beside a dad who lost his children as a result of prescription drug abuse, that system is all but useless.