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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SARS burst on the scene in 2003 after one man infected travelers staying on the same floor of a Hong Kong hotel. Now that a new virus with similarities to SARS has spread from person to person, public health officials are urging hospitals to be on guard. -
Those people who have contracted the H7N9 virus have become very sick. And unlike the older bird flu virus, this one shows some adaptation to mammals, making it a matter of concern. But it doesn't make chickens sick, posing unique difficulties in fighting this kind of flu. -
Fewer than three weeks after they were severely injured in the Boston Marathon bombings, Celeste Corcoran and her 18-year-old daughter, Sydney, are entering a new phase of recovery and rehabilitation. Part of their healing is emotional, not physical. -
As victims of the Boston Marathon bombings leave the hospital or prepare to, their stories are beginning to pour out. Celeste Corcoran and her daughter, Sydney, both suffered grievous leg injuries. Their accounts give a fuller toll of the attack and the challenges that lie ahead. -
An oversight committee halted a big clinical study of an experimental HIV vaccine after a peek at preliminary results showed there was no way the study would be able show the vaccine works. More vaccinated people became infected with HIV than those who got placebo shots. -
Researchers have retracted a study that found that hormone boosted production of insulin-producing cells in mice. They say they erred in counting the cells involved. -
An international team of disease detectives are in China to investigate an outbreak of a new strain of bird flu, H7N9. The biggest puzzle right now is where these infections are coming from, as testing poultry has turned up very few infected birds. -
These days hospitals drill for mass casualty disasters like the explosions at Monday's Boston Marathon. But when it happened for real, the first response was disbelief. Then the victims began arriving. Doctors say they were confronted with the kinds of IED injuries that U.S. troops have gotten in Iraq and Afghanistan. -
"The top priority is diagnosis — the capability to be able to pick up this virus, should it emerge outside of China," says virologist John McCauley. Flu researchers are getting started on creating a vaccine, but there are still many unknowns. -
Infants received different levels of oxygen to see which was better at preventing blindness without increasing the risk of nerve damage or death. But the federal government says doctors in the study didn't tell parents enough in advance about the "foreseeable risks" to their children.
