Projects
A seven-month investigation into federal mortality records reveals hundreds of thousands of death certificates filed every year in the United States are wrong, meaning we don't really know what's killing Americans.
A first-of-its-kind study also found that younger, well-educated and wealthy people are more likely to be autopsied when they die. More men than women are autopsied. And blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans are more likely to be autopsied than whites.
Thousands of everyday products and materials containing radioactively tainted metals are surfacing across the United States and around the world. But because of haphazard screening, an absence of oversight, and substantial disincentives for businesses to report contamination, no one knows how many tainted goods are in circulation.
A special report by Scripps Howard News Service finds as many as one in five Americans does not have a family doctor. And this translates directly to higher rates of illness and death and higher costs.
A special investigative report by Scripps Howard News Service finds taxpayers paying millions for students who never show up for class. For-profit "ghost schools" collect money even when students are absent.
A special investigative report by Scripps Howard News Service has prepared an in-depth look at the issues surrounding vaccine exemptions and the risk of disease resurgence.
A review by Scripps Howard News Service of levee oversight and funding at the state and national level suggests the new focus still may not be sufficient to overcome decades of neglect.
A new look at the records of 40,000 infant deaths casts deep doubt on claims of medical authorities that cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome have fallen by more than half since the 1990s. A Scripps Howard News Service Investigation of infant deaths going back to 1992 revealed that the quality of infant death investigations, the level of training for coroners, and the amount of oversight and review vary enormously across the country. In many cases, professional bias -- both for and against a diagnosis of SIDS -- trumps medical evidence. The sloppy investigations and muddled records come with a very high price: the deaths of more babies who might have been saved through medical research.
