Rae Ellen Bichell
Rae Ellen Bichell is a reporter for NPR's Science Desk. She first came to NPR in 2013 as a Kroc fellow and has since reported Web and radio stories on biomedical research, global health, and basic science. She won a 2016 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award from the Foundation for Biomedical Research. After graduating from Yale University, she spent two years in Helsinki, Finland, as a freelance reporter and Fulbright grantee.
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In January, one person died and five others were hospitalized during a test of an experimental drug in western France. Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what went wrong. -
Republicans say the NIH should switch funds from Ebola research to fighting Zika virusi, instead, but NIH officials balk. And a company prepares to test genetically engineered mosquitoes in Florida. -
Researchers say Zika virus should be added to the list of diseases that cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological condition that's been rising in areas with Zika transmission. -
HIV rates in the U.S. have been dropping for about a decade. But African-American and Latino men who have sex with men still face a very high risk of becoming infected. Stigma is one big reason. -
U.S. health officials say they have confirmed the two women had Zika. And their only risk factor was having slept with male partners who had recently traveled to places with active virus transmission.
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Fewer people are having strokes now than decades ago. But that improvement seems to be mostly among the elderly. Young people are actually having more strokes, partly because of the rise in obesity. -
A report from doctors in Argentina raises the possibility that a mosquito pesticide could be responsible for an increase in microcephaly in Brazil. But many top scientists strongly disagree. -
In rare but tricky cases, disposing of an explosive device requires removing it safely from a living person. Military doctors have ways to minimize the risks, but there's no way to eliminate them. -
Women report more bad side effects from medicines than men do. Researchers say the discrepancy may stem in part from how biomedical research is conducted at its earliest stages in animals. -
The warning is believed to be the first of its kind for the continental U.S. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read about this update and see a full timeline of the Zika outbreak.
