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 "radiation" ...
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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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A Matter of Risk: Radiation, Drinking Water and Deception
You probably use it every day. And you probably think it's relatively safe. But imagine if your home's tap water was actually: making the plumbing so radioactive it could set off a Geiger counter, releasing a dangerous gas whenever you took a shower or ran a dishwasher, exposing you to a 1 in 400 chance of cancer just by regularly drinking it. And imagine if the people who were supposed to protect you from this situation not only knew about it and failed to do much of anything, but instead spent decades covering it up. That's exactly what the KHOU I-team discovered to be the case for half a million and more Texas consumers during its 12-month investigation into the quality of the state's drinking water.
Tags: tap water; radioactive; cancer; drinking water
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Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
This book reveals how the U.S. government consciously looked away as miners, and then the neighbors, were exposed to uranium's dangers as it was mined on a Navajo reservation, in a slow-motion environmental catastrophe that last for decades and continues today.
Tags: uranium; radiation; mining; Navajo; Indian reservation; yellow cake; yellow dirt; EPA; Environmental Protection Agency; Indian Health Service; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Atomic Energy Commission; National Cancer Institute; environmental pollution; environmental disaster; nuclear power; atomic bomb
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The Radiation Boom
The reporter provides insight into the medical community's inadequate safety protections. Within these hospitals, the reporter documents the number of patients burned by the radiation of new machines, little government oversight,poorly trained personnel, and outdated equipment.
Tags: radiation; hospital; technology; FDA; overdoses
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"Fallout: The Legacy of Brookhaven Lab in the Pacific"
Reporter Thomas Maier reveals how radiation has affected the people of the Marshall Islands. In the 1950s, "Bravo," the "largest hydrogen bomb" detonated by the U.S., covered the islands in "radioactive ash." Only a few years later, Brookhaven National Lab scientists allowed residents to return to their homeland for "scientific and military concerns" despite the potential threat to their health.
Tags: Marshall Islands; Rongelap; Bravo; hydrogen bomb; radioactive ash; BNL; Brookhaven National Lab
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Recycled Radiation
Radioactive materials are being found in common consumer items because radioactive devices used in manufacturing and medicine are often mixing with scrap metal for use in large varieties of other products. "Recycled Radiation" outlines the findings from the Nuclear Material Events Database.
Tags: radioactive; material; products; consumers; scrap; metal; recycled; exposure; manufacturing; medicine; Mexico; transport; oversight; disposal; waste;
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Assault on Pelindaba
"Assault on Pelindaba is a story about global nuclear weapons proliferation and the very real threat of nuclear terrorism post 9/11. Experts agree that acquiring plutonium or highly enriched uranium, the material to actually make a nuclear weapon, is not easy."
Tags: nukes; atomic weapon; radiation; Hiroshima; September 11, 2001; Manhattan Project; Interpol;
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Hospital Corruption: "Salaries First, Patients Last"; "Hospital Secrets"
The series exposed Schneider Regional Medical Center's top executives' self-dealing and lavish pay, perks and the tragic result: The public hospital's cancer center was left so cash-strapped it could not pay for medicine and radiation equipment. The Daily News also revealed that more than $2.4 million in charity donations to the hospital's cancer center is missing, and the hospital cannot produce documentation to explain the numerous large withdrawals from bank accounts and entities that were specifically created to receive those donations. The investigation also found that two top hospital executives had criminal records, which were not disclosed when they were hired.
Tags: health care; hospital administration; corruption; embezzlement; chemotherapy and radiation; Virgin Islands
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Ill Rocky Flats nuclear workers
The reporters found that the federal government was limiting compensation for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers. The story focused on workers from Rocky Flats nuclear site near Denver, where hundreds of workers were denied medical and financial compensation. The reporters also revealed the full known human cost of the nation's nuclear weapons complex: radiation sickened 36,500 and killed at least 4,000 of those who built bombs, mined uranium, and breathed test fallout.
Tags: nuclear weapons; uranium; radiation; OSHA; federal government; insurance; illness
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Out in the Cold
The story details the Department of Labor's Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, a "worker's-comp program for former nuclear-weapons workers that acknowledges the link between long-term radiation exposure and several types of cancer, and promises compensation for cancer victims." While the department maintains that the program is "claimant-friendly," the program puts the "burden of proof of radiation exposure on sick and dying claimants who have no means to do so."
Tags: EEOICPA; nuclear weapons; radiation exposure; cancer; compensation; worker-comp; claimants