The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Institute of Medicine" ...
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What Killed Arafat?
This 50-minute film was the result of a nine month long cold case investigation into the suspicious death of Yasser Arafat, Palestine's iconic, revolutionary leader. After obtaining Arafat's entire original medical files, Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, led by producer and reporter Clayton Swisher, crossed continents to track down and interview the French, Jordanian, Egyptian, and Palestinian doctors who had worked to save Arafat's life. Part I of "What Killed Arafat?" was able to easily shatter popular myths about what caused Arafat's precipitous decline from the onset of his illness on October 12, 2004 until his death on November 11th. Testimony from Arafat's doctors conclusively ruled out liver cirrhosis, cancer, even rumors of HIV. The scientific, evidence-based discoveries made in the Part II result from the work performed by a team of forensic pathologists, toxicologists, and radiation physicists from the University Center for Legal Medicine and Institute for Radiation Physics in Lausanne, Switzerland. Working without payment, they agreed to run a battery of sophisticated tests on a large gym bag containing Arafat’s last personal effects. The scientists discovered significant levels of reactor-made Polonium 210 contaminating areas of Arafat's personal effects that came into contact with his biological fluids. When the final results came back in late June, Al Jazeera hosted Mrs. Arafat in Doha to watch the Swiss explain the results on set. Upon witnessing their testimony, Ms. Arafat made a resolute, unanticipated surprise announcement, calling on the Palestinian Authority to exhume her husband's body for testing. Yasser Arafat’s body was exhumed on November 27, 2012 so that the final samples could be retrieved. Whether the causes of Arafat's death are determined to be natural, inconclusive—or even murder—suffice it to say that Al Jazeera’s "What Killed Arafat?" and the resulting investigations and exhumation will have inched the world closer to understanding what did not, and possibly for the first time, what did claim the life of this historic and controversial personality.
Tags: Science; death; biology; investigation; exhumation; testing
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Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
This book documents how the per-capita disability rate due to mental illness has increased six-fold since 1955, when Thorazine was introduced into asylum medicine. The number of adults on government disability has tripled since 1987, the year Prozac was introduced. Finally, the number of children receiving disability due to a serious mental illness has risen 35-fold since 1987.
Tags: medicine; psychiatry; psychiatric medicine; Thorazine; Prozac; disability; mental illness; National Institute of Mental Health; World Health Organization; American Psychiatric Association;
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"Hidden Mistakes"
In Connecticut, the "adverse-event" law is supposed to ensure that hospitals report medical accidents that cause harm or death to patients to the state Department of Public Health. The law was revised in 2004 and since then the number of reported adverse-event cases has dropped "dramatically," suggesting that the medical mishaps are not being shared with the public and the state.
Tags: Bridgeport Hospital; Connecticut Center for Patient Safety; Connecticut Department of Public Health; Wendy Furniss; malpractice; Hartford Hospital; Terri Schiavo; Institute of Medicine
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Dead by Mistake
Studies indicate that the death toll for preventable deaths by medicine has more than doubled in the last ten years. "Death by Mistake" assesses the headway being made in the medical industry to reduce likeliness of preventable death.
Tags: medical; preventable; death; Trevor Nelson; Institute of Medicine; patient safety; adverse events;
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Dangerous Remedy
Robert Little of The (Baltimore) Sun reported that the U.S. Army has injected over 1000 soldiers wounded in Iraq with a medicine designed for hemophiliacs despite the fact that it is dangerous for people with normal blood. It can give them blood clots that could cause strokes and heart attacks. It costs $6000 per dose. Civilian doctors "have largely rejected it as a standard treatment for trauma patients." Army doctors say, in their experience, the drug saves lives by stopping hemorrhaging. Little says “Doctors in Iraq's emergency rooms, however, almost never care for their patients long enough to see firsthand whether blood clots or other complications have developed." Little reports that "the drug has never been subjected to a large-scale clinical trial to verify that it works and is safe for patients without hemophilia."
Tags: military medical system; Iraq; coagulant; Institute for Surgical Research; Germany; military hospitals; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; U.S. Department of Defense; DoD; Marines; Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs; U.S. Army Surgeon General; HIPPA; actionable intelligence; Recombinant Activated Factor VII; Novo Nordisk; coagulopathic bleeding;
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Suddenly Sick
In this series, The Seattle Times revealed their findings from an investigation into the medical world. Among other things, they found that: "Pharmaceutical firms have commandeered the process by which diseases are defined." They reported that the World Health Organization and the U.S. Institutes of Health, among others, receive money from drug companies to promote the agendas of those companies. They also found that "some diseases have been radically redefined without a strong basis in medical evidence."
Tags: medicine; doctors; physicians; medical industry; hospitals; health; pharmaceutical; WHO; NIH; National Institute of Health
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The $800 million pill: The truth behind the cost of new drugs
In this book, the author disproves the pharmaceutical industry's assertions that it is the primary originator of new drugs and that it costs $800 million to bring a new drug to market. The investigation found that most of the important and life-saving drugs of the past 25 years originated at taxpayer-funded universities and at the National Institutes of Health. The author contends that American taxpayers foot the bill twice for prescription drugs: once by supporting government funded research and again by paying the pharmaceutical industry's high prices.
Tags: BOOK; prescription drugs; medicine; pharmaceutical industry; drug companies; National Institutes of Health
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District bets on sports medicine
North Broward County Hospital District hired three new physicians as team doctors, clinicians who work with regular patients and as medical directors of a new sports medicine institute. The three doctors will receive $16.5 million over nine years, much higher salaries than most orthopedic surgeons in the Southeast receive. Other physicians and critics say this is unfair because the district never looked into other options which may have been cheaper for taxpayers, such as seeking competitive bids. They believe this deal may have "more to do with politics than with medicine."
Tags: Professional sports; Dr. George Caldwell; Dr. Erol Yoldas; Dr. Daniel Kanell
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Prison Medicine: Costly Decisions, Dire Consequences
The Dispatch follows the lead from the death of a 19-year old inmate Sean Schwamberger from an undetected drug-resistant staph infection, in order to carry out a detailed investigation of healthcare in prisons. The revelations are startling. While some critically ill inmates died after waiting an hour for ambulances, some went without surgery for 16 months during which time their ailments worsened. It was also found that the track record of some physicians who treated the inmates, included felony. And amid complaints of the low caliber and poor performance of contractor-provided physicians, the taxpayer pays more than $1 million in bills to pay wrongful death and medical negligence claims filed by inmates and their families.
Tags: Gov. Bob Taft; Pickaway Correctional Institution; Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction; Dr. Bruce Martin
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Medicines for Millions of Dollars
"In the first text 'Medicines for Million Dollars' we exposed a corruption proposal made to an American pharmaceutical concern. Then we followed with texts bringing to light suspicious developments involving closest associates of former Minister of Health Mariusz Lapinski -- notably Lapinski's political office chief Waldemar Deszczynski and Vice - minister of Health Aleksander Nauman who was responsible for medicines supply policy, including the registration and placing of medicines on refundable medicines lists. (Several weeks before our first release the prime minister appointed Nauman the chairman of the National Health Fund, an institution which is the sole administrator of the health insurance system's money.)"