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>One would think the Dr. Earl Bradley horror show could not get worse.</p> <p>The Delaware pediatrician was indicted in February on charges he brutally molested more than 100 children in a toy-filled basement.</p> <p>Then Chris Barrish at the <em>Delaware News Journal</em> showed how <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100418/NEWS01/4180339/Beebe-Med… a story this bad could get uglier</a>:</p>
<p>If you have ever suffered from serious, ongoing pain (<a href="http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/">RSI</a>, anyone?) you know the desire to take something, anything, to make it go away. What if you were told that you may have a risk as high as 2% of developing heart problems as a result of the painkiller? Would that stop you? And what if you were told that your risk without the drugs was 1%? Would that make you any more likely to start taking the pills?</p>
<p>Until the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the <a href="http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/the-10-worst-corporate-m… of Vioxx</a> seemed to be the biggest corporate disaster of the new millennium.</p>
<p>There are several ways to secure one’s genetic line for at least another generation.</p> <p>One can court another person, marry (or not), mate and bask in the many joys of parenthood.</p> <p>Folks born without the proper equipment or in relationships that don’t allow for simple reproduction can arrange for an egg donor, sperm donor or surrogate mother to help carry one’s genes to a daughter or a son. Parenthood is just as fun.</p> <p>And then there is what someday may be dubbed the Ramaley method.</p>
<p><em>Antidote</em> <a href="http://bit.ly/afH4N8">proposed on Friday</a> that medical and science journal editors do more than talk tough about conflicts of interest in their journals.
<p><a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296.8.jed60051v1">Dr. Catherine DeAngelis</a>, editor-in-chief of the <em>Journal of the American Medical Association</em>, made some bold statements at last week’s <a href="http://bit.ly/cglZnt">Association of Health Care Journalists</a> conference in Chicago.</p> <p>“I usually talk about conflict of interest wearing a flak jacket,” DeAngelis said and proceeded to list all the ways she has gotten tough on authors with ties to the drug or device industries.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until four years after the first allegations were brought against Dr. Michael E. Stoddard in Colorado that the curtain was pulled back for the patients to see what had been happening on stage.</p> <p>The scene that the <a href="https://doraimage.state.co.us/LibertyIMS::/user%3Dreg%20public;pwd%3D;s… Board of Medical Examiners’ final decision</a> set, with Stoddard as the main player, was not pretty.</p>
<p>The annual <a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/">Association of Health Care Journalists</a> conference has become indispensable in a way conferences never are.</p> <p>Far from just an excuse to see old friends and drink too much, the AHCJ conference is always so packed with great speakers and workshops that writers find themselves wishing for a baby monitor they could set up in one session while they attend a different session down the hall.</p>
<p>If the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/">ProPublica</a> experiment with nonprofit investigative journalism is teaching us anything, it is the importance of follow-through.</p>
<p>Reading Dr. Michael E. Stoddard's history of infractions, like so many medical board records in Colorado, is a little like reading Tom Stoppard's play <em>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</em>. Each disciplinary document focuses on what happened offstage, omitting key details and leaving the real drama, tragedy, or dark comedy to the imagination.</p>