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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When researchers compared the cost of condoms for women with the cost of HIV infections it prevented, they found the relatively new condoms saved between $15 and $20 for every dollar spent on distributing them in Washington. -
Shavings of metal can flake off of the artificial joints and cause serious pain and medical problems in the hip. About a half-million Americans have this type of implant, and though most patients won't have a problem, one doctor called the failure rate "unacceptably high." -
There's enough vaccine to treat the 100,000 Haitians who have signed up for it. But a government mix-up and a local radio station's incendiary report put the project on hold just a few weeks before the earthquake-ravaged nation's rainy season begins. -
Researchers have shown how a bacterium resistant to antibiotic treatment passed from humans to pigs to humans. And now the new resistant human bug appears to be spreading beyond people with direct exposure to livestock. -
Many hospitals around the nation are perilously close to running out of a form of the old standby cancer drug methotrexate. The reason: a principal supplier of injectable methotrexate shut down in November after it flunked an FDA inspection. -
Counterfeit versions of diet drugs, Lipitor and a flu medication called Tamiflu have been found in this country before. But so far fake cancer medicines have been rare. -
President Obama's health care overhaul was largely based on one that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts in 2006. Now, more than 98 percent of state residents have health insurance, and the law has drawn unexpected supporters. But controlling costs remains a challenge.
