Residents, officials voice concern about ethylene oxide pollution

Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD.  Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. Local residents and their elected officials in metro Atlanta are responding with concern after learning that a cancer-causing gas could be drifting through the air near their homes, schools and workplaces. On Friday, WebMD and Georgia…

Neighborhoods unaware of airborne cancer-causing toxin

This story is jointly reported by Brenda Goodman of WebMD and Andy Miller of Georgia Health News. Ann Singley was trying to muscle her lawnmower out of a ditch in front of her home in Covington when she felt a tug in her breast. It was a hard lump, and in the days after she…

Pregnant women face risk despite federal ER law

This special report, Deprived of Care: When ERs Break the Law, is an investigation by WebMD and Georgia Health News. Here’s a link to Part 1, Lives lost amid ER violations, investigation finds Jamie Larson had just been wheeled into a room at Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Roseville, CA, after the birth of her first child…

Lives lost amid ER violations, investigation finds

This special report, Deprived of Care: When ERs Break the Law, is an investigation by WebMD and Georgia Health News.  Randy Strickland walked into the ER at North Metro Medical Center burning with fever and trembling. He told the man and the woman who were staffing the triage desk that he was nauseated and felt like…

Report provides no answers in Waycross child cancer cases

Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. Brenda Goodman is senior news writer for WebMD. On a recent evening in Waycross, GA, government officials gathered around card tables set up in a semi-circle on the polished wood floors of the city auditorium. There were representatives from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances…

The high cost of surviving rabies

Brenda Goodman is senior news writer at WebMD. Andy Miller is CEO and editor of Georgia Health News. Feb. 20, 2018 — A brown bat the size of a mouse with teeth like a stapler may or may not have bitten Tamara Davis in Georgia. But it certainly took a bite out of her bank…

There’s lead in that?!

PART  FIVE OF SPECIAL REPORT By Brenda Goodman, Elizabeth Fite and Andy Miller Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD. Elizabeth Fite is a health care journalist based in Chattanooga, and Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. This investigation was supported by a grant from The Arthur M. Blank…

As lead poisoned a child, a slow state response

PART  FOUR OF SPECIAL REPORT By Brenda Goodman and Andy Miller Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD, and Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. This investigation was supported by a grant from The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Almost as soon as he could balance on his plump…

Should newborns be screened for Krabbe disease?

This article was jointly reported by WebMD Health News and Georgia Health News Jackson Garcia was born “healthy and round and full of hair.” But at 5 months old, he started getting fussy around mealtimes and refused food. “My worst fear was colic,” said his mother, April Garcia, who lives in Lawrenceville, Ga.. When Jackson didn’t…

The problem with cancer clusters (Part Four of Special Report)

GHN Special Report on Child Cancer: Part Four Jointly reported by WebMD and Georgia Health News When four children in Waycross, GA, were diagnosed with sarcoma cancers within a 2-month period last year, people wanted to know if they had a cancer cluster. Chief among them was state Rep. Jason Spencer, a Republican from Woodbine…