Richard Knox
Since he joined NPR in 2000, Knox has covered a broad range of issues and events in public health, medicine, and science. His reports can be heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Talk of the Nation, and newscasts.
Among other things, Knox's NPR reports have examined the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa, North America, and the Caribbean; anthrax terrorism; smallpox and other bioterrorism preparedness issues; the rising cost of medical care; early detection of lung cancer; community caregiving; music and the brain; and the SARS epidemic.
Before joining NPR, Knox covered medicine and health for The Boston Globe. His award-winning 1995 articles on medical errors are considered landmarks in the national movement to prevent medical mistakes. Knox is a graduate of the University of Illinois and Columbia University. He has held yearlong fellowships at Stanford and Harvard Universities, and is the author of a 1993 book on Germany's health care system.
He and his wife Jean, an editor, live in Boston. They have two daughters.
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The study is the first to test an oral vaccine in the middle of an outbreak — in Guinea in 2012. And it offered a remarkable degree of protection against this deadly disease. -
Health officials say online restaurant reviews can turn up unreported foodborne illness outbreaks. In New York City, Yelp reviews led officials to three restaurants with food handling problems. -
The federal Medicare program for the elderly and disabled will cover two new drugs that can cure hepatitis C, a liver disease that can cause cancer and lead to death. The drugs are very expensive, but they cure hepatitis C in most cases. The government and insurers are concerned about these costs; three million Americans have hepatitis C, most of whom don't know they have it.
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This policy change would pay for treatment with a combination of new, expensive drugs for patients who haven't responded to older treatment regimens and are approaching or have cirrhosis of the liver. -
Two new drugs for hepatitis C can save lives. They are also wildly expensive, costing $66,000 to $84,000 per person. Insurers face paying billions for treatment, or explicitly rationing vital care. -
As many as 5 million Americans have hepatitis C, and new drugs can cure almost all of them. But patients worry they won't get these expensive treatments in time. -
About 150 million people worldwide have hepatitis C, and all should be assessed and treated, the World Health Organization says. The cost of screening and drugs means that won't happen soon. -
New advice to reduce heart attacks and strokes could more than double the number of Americans taking cholesterol-lowering statins to 56 million. The expansion could cost as much as $7 billion a year. -
States are legalizing marijuana even though there's no clear understanding of its impact on health. The drug hasn't been subjected to the kind of rigorous medical research that would find that out. -
A new virus in the Middle East has sickened more than 180 people and killed an alarming 43 percent of them. But scientists haven't been sure where the virus originates or how people catch it.
