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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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.
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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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Researchers suggest that guidelines for regular breast cancer screening should look beyond a woman's age. Dense breast tissue, a cancer risk factor, may be a reason to consider earlier screening with mammograms.
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Women who took aspirin at least a couple of times a week for five years or more cut their risk of melanoma by 30 percent. The new study adds to the mounting pile of research suggesting that cheap, common aspirin lowers the risk of many cancers, including colon, breast, esophagus, stomach, prostate, bladder and ovarian cancer.
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Thanks to drugs recently approved by the FDA, patients with the blood cell cancer multiple myeloma are living longer and without the pain. Don Wright was diagnosed 10 years ago and is currently training for his 71st marathon.
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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 large niacin-plus-simvistatin study by the drug maker Merck may have far-reaching implications, since millions of people take niacin every day to prevent heart attacks and strokes. One doctor says "phones will ring off the hook in cardiology practices throughout America" because of the news.
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In South Africa, drug users are crushing HIV medications and mixing them with marijuana, heroin and other illicit drugs. Public health workers worry that people who smoke so-called whoonga are helping to fuel the rise of drug-resistant HIV.
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Stroke is usually a problem that comes with age, but a surprising number of children have strokes, too. Many kids have conditions that put them at higher risk. But surgeons have developed a technique that cuts the risk in some of these kids by giving part of the brain a new blood supply.