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

Disease associations might not operate as advertised

<p>A reporter gets a call from the hypothetical Council for Making Sick Kids Smile about an event being sponsored on an otherwise sleepy Sunday. The reporter heads out to the event, hoping for a quick local page filler, and comes back to the newsroom with a great-sounding story with quotes from a well-spoken university professor and a teary mom and a photo of a sick and smiling child holding balloons nuzzling with a baby koala bear.</p>

<p>What reporters in this situation rarely ask is: who founded this council and why?</p>

Doctors Behaving Badly: Dentist accused of molestation blames Parkinson’s drugs

<p>In the end, the dirty dentist didn't get away with it.</p> <p>A Collier County Circuit Court judge last week <a href="http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/sep/03/former-dentist-gets-10-years…; David Rees Sperry to 10 years in prison for lewd and lascivious battery after Sperry <a href="http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/Apr/04/man_charged_sexual_battery_a…; a 14-year-old boy at a beach near Naples, Florida, and forced the boy to perform oral sex on him.</p>

Doctors Behaving Badly: Florida cardiologist gets caught fibbing in federal case

<p>Medical malpractice cases can live or die on the testimony of an expert witness. Defense<br /> attorneys will go after the expert's credentials with every tool in their kit.</p> <p>One would think that plaintiff's attorneys suing the federal government on behalf of a<br /> patient would make sure they had a doctor with impeccable experience ready to take the stand and bolster the patient's case.</p> <p>Instead, they hired Dr. Alex T. Zakharia.</p>