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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Couples should get tested for HIV together, and if one person is infected, that partner should start treatment right away, the World Health Organization says. This new strategy is aimed at reducing transmission between "discordant" couples, which accounts for most new HIV infections. -
Patients can often skip expensive treatments for simpler, cheaper alternatives. That's the gist of a new campaign from the American College of Physicians. But they've got to convince not just patients, but doctors, too. -
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is expected to show her support for two big vaccination initiatives in Haiti, including one against cholera. Previously, U.S. health officials were cool to the cholera pilot project . -
Cholera was introduced into Haiti 18 months ago. So far, more than a half-million people have gotten sick and 7,000 have died. Public health authorities say the disease will linger for a long time because Haiti has the worst sanitation in the Western Hemisphere. -
Life for most Haitians is a constant struggle for clean water. And now that cholera has invaded Haiti, safe drinking water has become Haiti's most urgent public health problem. The disease has killed more than 7,000 people since late 2010.
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Researchers conclude that spiral CT, which makes 3-D pictures of lungs, could reduce lung cancer deaths by 35 percent at a cost of $19,000 to $26,000 per year of life saved. The findings apply to people at high risk for developing lung cancer. -
Malaria parasites resistant to the last, best drug treatment, called artemisinin combination therapy, or ACT, are infecting people along the border of Thailand and Myanmar. And it arose independently of the resistant malaria found in Cambodia. Now health workers face a two-front war. -
Nine national medical groups have identified 45 diagnostic tests, procedures and treatments that they say often are unnecessary and expensive. The head of one of the specialty groups says unneeded tests probably account for $250 billion in health care spending. -
Norwegian scientists say as many as 1 in every 4 cases of breast cancer doesn't need to be found because it would never have caused symptoms or death. They also question a fundamental justification of mammography: that it finds more cancers when they're early and more curable. -
The typical first-time mother takes 6 1/2 hours to give birth these days. Her counterpart 50 years ago labored for barely four hours. That's a finding with big implications for current rates of cesarean sections.
