William Heisel
Contributing Editor
Contributing Editor
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.
<p>After a legal battle, Illinois has reinstated its Physician Profile database, so patients can look up their doctors' history. But one key oversight tool is still missing.</p>
<p>Should a university president be penalized for standing by while university researchers put their names on scientific papers written by pharma-paid ghostwriters?</p>
<p>More than 1 million people have been born in the US from donor eggs or donor sperm. For the most part, they can’t find out anything about at least one of their biological parents. That's now starting to change.</p>
<p>Why are state medical boards disciplining doctors by sending them to work in prisons? Why are some prison doctors with troubled histories kept away from patients - yet still collect their salaries? Learn how to report on these issues in your community.</p>
<p>Beware of the Big Idea science stories first marketed as breakthroughs through magazine covers and PowerPoint presentations — only to be proven with increasing regularity to be more fiction than fact.</p>
<p>Thanks to the influential science blog Retraction Watch, when a paper gets pulled, the world hears about it. Here are my favorite Retraction Watch contributions to medical research and health reporting.</p>
<p>Journalist Tracy Wood talks about her investigation into a lack of parks in some Orange County (Calif.) cities and how it affects residents' health.</p>
<p>Making parks and their impact on community health interesting to editors and readers is a daunting challenge. Here, journalist Tracy Wood shares advice for tackling similar stories in your community. </p>
<p>What you can learn from a great investigative series on the lack of parks in one Southern California region and what that means for residents' health and well-being.</p>
<p>When investigative health journalist Marshall Allen told me that my anti-FOIA stance seemed counterproductive, I listened. Here's his compelling argument.</p>