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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Sixteen cases of a new flu in China have touched off a major effort to determine what kind of threat it might be. Flu experts want to know where the H7N9 virus is coming from and how it gets around.
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India's Supreme Court says drug maker Novartis can't hold onto its patent for the pricey cancer drug Gleevec simply by tweaking its chemical formula. That means generic drug makers can keep making a form of the drug at a tenth of Novartis's price. Consumer advocates call it a major advance for access to generic drugs. The drug industry says it will chill companies' willingness to produce innovative products.
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A study found that 1 in 5 adults ages 20 to 55 who survive strokes will die within 20 years of the event — a rate much higher than doctors expected. The findings mean doctors need to pay a lot more attention to younger stroke survivors.
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Because dust, mold and pests can trigger asthma attacks, addressing these triggers in the home can keep kids from winding up in the hospital. In the past seven years, the Community Asthma Initiative in Boston has counseled more than a thousand families on how to prevent attacks.
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Scientists say a Mississippi child has been cured of HIV. The research findings, released Sunday, could help cure other HIV-infected newborns.
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Only about 800 women younger than 40 get the kind of breast cancer that has spread to bones or other organs by the time it's diagnosed. But that number tripled in a generation, and scientists are left wondering what's the cause.
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A new poll explores how crucial everyday decisions are made in American households about food and exercise.
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On the third anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake, the country is laying plans to rid itself of the cholera epidemic that followed in its wake. Most scientists now think Nepalese soldiers unwittingly spread the pathogen in Haiti when they joined a United Nations peacekeeping force.
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A Meningitis outbreak occurred after a steroid drug commonly injected into people's spines to relieve back pain was apparently contaminated by an ordinary fungus. The problem shines a light on little-known and lightly regulated companies called compounding pharmacies.
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The Swedish team transplanted uteruses from two women in their 50s to their daughters, and an Indiana group is recruiting women willing to undergo womb transplants in this country. It's the latest frontier in a field launched in 1954 with a successful kidney transplant. But one expert cautions against premature enthusiasm.