In its first 10 years, STAT has led the way in charting seismic events: the rise of a pandemic and the science-shaking directives of a new president, but also the emergence of a transformative new class of obesity drugs and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence in health care. We’ve investigated needless deaths caused by the scourges of opioids and hepatitis C, uncovered questionable business practices of corporate behemoths, and revealed how a scientific “cabal” may have delayed progress in the search for Alzheimer’s treatments. These are 10 of the most impactful stories produced by STAT.
march 2016
Taking on Purdue Pharma
Four months after STAT launched, we filed a motion in a local court in Kentucky seeking to unseal documents that could provide new information on how Purdue Pharma marketed its potent opioid pain pill OxyContin — including what top executives knew about how addictive it was. The secret files included a deposition of Dr. Richard Sackler, a former Purdue president and a member of the family that owned the company. Reporting by David Armstrong for STAT (and ProPublica) surfaced the deposition, and, along with the unsealing of the documents in 2019 after a 3.5-year legal battle, revealed that when Sackler and other executives were initially presented with concerns about OxyContin’s potential for abuse, they downplayed the risks and “focused on how to protect OxyContin sales.”
Sept. 2017
IBM Watson Health
A STAT investigation of IBM’s vaunted Watson supercomputer’s use in cancer care found that it was generating complaints from doctors around the world that its care recommendations often weren’t appropriate for patients in their countries. A follow-up article by Casey Ross and Ike Swetlitz in July 2018 reported that internal IBM documents show that Watson for Oncology often spit out erroneous cancer treatment advice and that company medical specialists and customers identified “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations” and that the problems raise “serious questions about the process for building content and the underlying technology.”
june 2019
Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’
More than two dozen scientists told STAT’s Sharon Begley that the most influential Alzheimer’s researchers believed so dogmatically in the “amyloid hypothesis” as the cause of the disease that they had thwarted progress on alternative ideas, by influencing what studies got published in top journals, which scientists got funded, who got tenure, and who got speaking slots at reputation-buffing scientific conferences. The stifling of competition by what some of them called a “cabal” was a big reason why there had been no disease-modifying treatment approved for Alzheimer’s at that time.
Jan. 2020 to present
Covid coverage
As the first U.S. news organization to seize on the novel coronavirus as a potentially catastrophic global health threat, STAT, led by reporter Helen Branswell, consistently produced vital, prescient coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. STAT was a persistent watchdog and go-to source of the most credible information on the pandemic, pressing government officials and public health experts and mining data for the most authoritative and up-to-date information. In an article about our Covid reporting in March 2020, the New York Times described STAT as “the medical news site that saw the coronavirus coming months ago.” STAT reporters were named Pulitzer Prize finalists for their coverage, and Branswell won a George Polk Award, one of the top prizes in journalism.
june 2021
The Aduhelm Files
STAT reporters disclosed how the biotech company Biogen mounted a secret campaign, code-named “Project Onyx,” to resurrect its Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm despite the apparent failure of two clinical trials. Using an unusual back-channel to a top FDA official, Biogen managed to convince the agency to greenlight the drug. A congressional investigation launched in response to STAT’s reporting concluded in December 2022 that the approval was “rife with irregularities,” including dozens of undisclosed calls and emails and an inappropriate level of coordination between the company and the FDA. The reporting team received a Polk Award.
dec. 2022
‘Death Sentence’ series on hepatitis C in prisons
A STAT investigation found that more than 1,000 incarcerated people died from hepatitis C-related complications in state prisons in the six years after a curative drug hit the market. The death rate in 2019 was double that of the broader U.S. population. Reporter Nicholas Florko documented prisons’ blatant refusal to test and treat people with the condition, even, in some cases, in the face of legal orders to do so. Prisons said the medicine, even as its price has dropped, was too expensive for them to distribute widely. But incarcerated people are fighting back, with some winning court rulings forcing the prison system to care for them and, in some cases, other incarcerated hepatitis C patients. Florko was named a finalist for a National Magazine Award for this series.
March 2023
Denied by AI
This series, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting, highlighted the dangers of AI use in medicine. Casey Ross and Bob Herman’s reporting exposed how UnitedHealth Group used an unregulated algorithm to override clinicians’ judgment and deny care to seriously ill older and disabled patients. Treatment was delayed for some patients, while others had to pay for their care themselves or get by without it. The series had immediate and far-reaching impact: Medicare stepped up audits of insurers’ refusal to cover patient care and issued new guidance on the use of AI tools to deny care, and two class-action lawsuits were filed in response to STAT’s reporting.
march 2023
The Obesity Revolution
This series explained how the new generation of GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is transforming patients’ lives — and also dividing experts, warping the health care system, and spurring the biggest business battle in years. Led by reporter Elaine Chen, and drawing on contributions from more than 15 other beat writers, STAT uncovered extensive efforts by the maker of Ozempic to influence doctors (even medical students) and to reshape views of obesity. We brought the financial impact and surprising science behind these medicines to life. We showed that society is trying to medicate its way out of a complex epidemic, and that without policy changes, the drugs will be out of reach for many.
July 2024
Health Care’s Colossus
STAT chronicled the untold story of how UnitedHealth Group has gobbled up multiple pieces of the health care industry and exploited its growing empire to milk the system for profit. UnitedHealth’s tactics have transformed medicine in communities across the country into an assembly line that treats millions of patients as products to be monetized. The Polk Award-winning series — reported by Bob Herman, Tara Bannow, Casey Ross, and Lizzy Lawrence — helped lead to two ongoing Justice Department investigations and spurred lawmakers’ calls for reforms in the Medicare Advantage program.
jan. 2025 to present
Trump’s upheaval of science
From Inauguration Day, virtually STAT’s entire team of reporters has been covering how President Trump and his team are transforming the federal government’s health and science agenda, with a focus on vaccine policy, the MAHA movement, and the impact on science and medical research. Among hundreds of articles we’ve published, STAT wrote the first story explaining that the Trump administration planned to use billions of dollars of research grants as leverage to pressure universities and medical centers to dismantle DEI programs and align their institutional practices with the president’s ideology, foreshadowed the crackdown on Harvard and other elite universities, and reported that grant freezes and terminations were hitting early-career scientists especially hard, raising worries about a brain drain. At the 100-day mark of Trump’s term, we reported that NIH grant funding was running several billion dollars behind prior years’ funding levels, profiled five people impacted by the turmoil in science, and published an extensive timeline charting, day by day, changes in the worlds of science and health.
