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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Public health officials hope OraQuick, which just won the FDA's approval, will help identify some of the nearly quarter-million Americans who are infected with HIV but don't know it. These unknowingly infected people are one reason why there are something like 50,000 new HIV infections a year in the U.S. -
Today in Haiti there are thousands of modern-day Lazaruses — people who have been rescued from the final stages of AIDS with treatment. Many HIV-positive survivors there and around the world are receiving treatment thanks to President Bush's $15 billion emergency program, called PEPFAR. -
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites Rhode Island Hospital for fast work in stamping out a dangerous antibiotic-resistant germ. But federal officials are concerned the next time might not go as well. They're asking U.S. hospitals to be alert to the threat. -
Researchers have found two very different cholera strains in some of the first Haitians to be struck by the disease. The findings suggest that cholera germs may have been lurking undetected in Haiti for a long time. -
Researchers have found traces of HIV virus in the cells of the first man who was cured of the infection with bone marrow transplants. It raises fresh questions about how to define a cure for HIV/AIDS. -
More than 10 percent of the new cases of tuberculosis diagnosed in China each year are resistant to the mainstay drugs used to treat the illness. The sobering findings come from the first national survey of the disease conducted there. -
When it comes to out-of-pocket costs for health care, 42 percent of Hispanics say they're a "very serious" problem, according to a recent NPR poll. The finding runs counter to the widespread impression that African-Americans are worst-off when it comes to the cost and quality of health care. -
The FDA says fake Adderall pills are easy to spot: They're white instead of peachy-pink; and the packaging of the counterfeit pills is riddled with typos and misspellings — "aspartrte" instead of "aspartate," and "singel" instead of "single." -
A federal task force's recommendations against routine blood tests for prostate cancer raises big questions about how to interpret medical evidence and what role expert panels should play in how doctors practice. But those questions aren't easy to answer.
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Over the past decade or so, sigmoidoscopy has been largely abandoned by doctors in the U.S. in favor of colonoscopy to detect and prevent colon cancer. But sigmoidoscopy is easier on patients and is also effective in finding precancerous polyps.
