William Heisel

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

Choosing Health: Things I Learned at Net Impact 2011

The annual Net Impact conference brings together some of the world’s brightest young business minds to tackle big questions about how to build a better future. Here are some tips from the conference for health writers.

Slap: Dallas Hospital Sues Attorney General to Block Reporters' Access

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas is a public hospital. This may surprise you because the hospital has fought so hard to keep secret information about how it spends public resources. Here's how the hospital has tried to stymie the Dallas Morning News' reporting.

Update: Phone Cancer, Anonymous Doctors, Day Care Data and Billboard Attack Ads

Wonder what happened with the National Practitioner Data Bank, the cell phone-cancer link and Lap-Band surgery shenanigans? Find out in these updates.

Slap: Office of Special Counsel Fights for Fired FDA Whistleblower Paul Hardy

FDA regulator Paul T. Hardy blew the whistle on problems with a Kodak mammography system — and got fired for his trouble. Here's what happened next.

Q&A with Nancy Cambria: Keeping Emotions in Check While Covering Day Care Deaths

How did St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nancy Cambria report her groundbreaking — and heartbreaking — series on child deaths in day care without falling apart emotionally?

One Child Is Too Many: Five Tips from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Deadly Day Care Series

When St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nancy Cambria started reporting on a child who died at a home day care in Missouri, she turned what could have been a tragic but isolated event into a can’t-put-it-down series. Here are five useful reporting tips from her work.