STAT employees share stories they wish they had written in 2024

In 2024, STAT’s reporters have brought you lots of great journalism, and elsewhere (link in case you missed it) we’ve given you a compendium of stories you may have missed on our site.

Below, we’ve also compiled our annual list of stories that STAT employees have enjoyed and wish they had written. (Also check out the jealousy list at Bloomberg Businessweek, where the idea first came from.)

by Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic

As health reporters, we write a lot about the impact of diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia and the long-standing efforts to cure them. Rarely – partly because it happens so rarely – do we write about what happens after healing. In this brilliant portrait, Sarah Zhang skillfully describes what happened after CF treatment: how it not only extended life by decades for many patients, but also complicatedly changed what it meant to live.
— Submitted by Jason Mast

by Sharon Lerner, ProPublica

There have been many explosive revelations about how companies like 3M and DuPont were poisoning the world with PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” One such report, about how attorney Rob Bilott took a farmer’s accusation that DuPont poisoned his cows and turned it into groundbreaking lawsuits, was made into a 2019 Mark Ruffalo film. But Sharon Lerner’s latest contribution to the canon of what these companies knew and when they knew it is worse than anyone could have imagined: A company keeping secrets from its employees, and a woman who has spent decades talking about what she did discovered – the 3Ms chemicals were in the blood samples of every single person on earth. The storytelling techniques Lerner uses kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Goosebumps, chills, a few “oh my gods”… you need to read this.
—Submitted by Brittany Trang

by Maddie Oatman, Mother Jones

With DNA-altering drugs and AIs that predict protein structure, it might feel like we’re living in a sci-fi future. But when it comes to menstruation, science is still stuck in the past. In this fascinating, stirring look at how the historical stigma and cultural taboos surrounding periods have hindered efforts to learn from them, Maddie Oatman unabashedly explores the overlooked potential of menstrual fluid as a rich source of health information – from the Cancer screening to fertility testing to understanding debilitating diseases like endometriosis.
— Submitted by Megan Molteni

by Stacy Kranitz and Kavitha Surana, ProPublica

It is sometimes difficult to imagine exactly how broad policies will impact local people. ProPublica has done an incredible job this year documenting exactly how devastating abortion restrictions have been on families. The publication’s photo essay by Stacy Kranitz with reporting by Kavitha Surana is one of the most powerful pieces of journalism I’ve seen this year. The two followed Mayron Michelle Hollis for a year after she was denied an abortion because of a risky pregnancy, documenting her uphill battle to care for her children in a state with a weak social safety net. She battles crushing financial stress, addiction and mental health issues. Kranitz’s photos capture this torment as well as the moments of joy and connection that make up a life.
— Submitted by Lizzy Lawrence

by Emily Alpert Reyes, Los Angeles Times

OK, I’m cheating a bit, because the first part of this series about a disease affecting countertop cutters in Los Angeles County was published in late 2023. But the sequel this year highlights reporter Emily Alpert Reyes’ commitment to the plight of mostly young Latino workers with a terminal illness caused by inhaling bits of silica in engineered stone countertops. This series highlights the stark choice many American workers face between staying healthy and making a living.
— Submitted by Isabella Cueto

by Caleb Melby, Polly Mosendz and Noah Buhayar, Bloomberg

The rise of mid-level physicians is one of the major trends transforming American medicine. This Bloomberg story examines the frightening underbelly of this trend and raises big questions about whether some of these mid-level doctors are qualified to care for us and our children.
— Submitted by Zachary Tracer

by Gisela Salim-Payer, The Atlantic

“The Nobel Prize is one of the greatest branding exercises in history,” writes Gisela Salim-Peyer, before explaining how the Nobel Prize came about The Price. That’s the kind of holy cow slaughter I like to see as an opinion editor.
— Submitted by Torie Bosch

By Leslie Roberts, Science

There is no reporter on the planet who has covered the painful, drawn-out endgame (if we’re lucky!) of the polio eradication program as diligently and astutely as Leslie Roberts, who publishes primarily in Science. Roberts got his hands on a draft report on the tragically botched “Switch,” the 2016 attempt to remove a problematic component from the live polio vaccine. The open draft report was a painful autopsy of the people behind the decision to drive change when the world was not yet ready. The final version, released months later while the world was fixated on the results of the US election, was sanitized. But the original lives on in Roberts’ reporting.
— Submitted by Helen Branswell

by J. David McSwane, ProPublica

From the headline “Eat what you kill” to the breathtaking details of this story about a rogue doctor and the patients he killed, everything reads like a Netflix thriller. But the story is shockingly and tragically true. ProPublica’s J. David McSwane has done a masterful job of telling this painful story of a doctor, the hospital, the nurses and the city he largely controlled, and the many deaths he caused, without anyone caring for years because the profits he made were so great.
— Submitted by Usha Lee McFarling

by Chris Hamby, New York Times

We reported on MultiPlan, a company little known to the public that operates in the shadows of the healthcare system. But this research shows how important it is within the health insurance industry – and deftly explains how MultiPlan’s business translates into higher costs for all workers and the companies that offer them health insurance. The New York Times even argued with key documents sealed in federal court to support its series, highlighting how MultiPlan and all major health insurance carriers work together to pay as little as possible for out-of-network medical claims and ” “to achieve” savings that should be returned to consumers.
— Submitted by Bob Herman

by Kurzgesagen – To the point

I have been a big fan of the YouTube channel “Kurzgesagen – In a Nutshell” for a very long time. In my opinion, the videos they produce are the gold standard for animated explainer videos. “Vaping is too good to be true” is quintessential Kurzgesagen – thoroughly researched, nuanced, beautifully illustrated and expertly animated. It’s very accessible and fun to watch, but ultimately the viewer is left with the most important takeaway: Is vaping healthier than smoking? Almost certainly. Is it dangerous? Well, we don’t know how dangerous it is yet, but yes. It’s science communication at its finest.
— Submitted by Alex Hogan

by Shaun Lintern, The Sunday Times

London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital is considered one of the greatest children’s hospitals in the world. It was all the more shocking to read this Sunday Times article about alleged improper care by an orthopedic surgeon named Yaser Jabbar, who worked in the field of lower limb reconstruction. It describes a child who had to have a leg amputated due to complications after surgery, and other children whose legs were of different lengths. The story also detailed a damning Royal College of Surgeons report into Jabbar, who left GOSH last year, and the wider problems at GOSH. Eventually, news of a GOSH investigation was spread by hundreds of patients who had been cared for by Jabbar; Of the 37 cases reviewed at that time, 22 were found to have suffered some degree of harm.
— Submitted by Andrew Joseph