Caroline Chen

Reporter

Photo of Caroline Chen

Caroline Chen covers health care for ProPublica. She has written about public health, hospitals, drugmakers and clinical trials, highlighting disparities in patient access, broken funding models and abuses of power.

Her 2020 coverage of the coronavirus pandemic included investigations into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s early failures to contain the outbreak, vaccine inequities and distortion of COVID-19 data. Her work was part of ProPublica’s coverage recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.

Her 2019 stories on a heart transplant program in New Jersey that prioritized metrics over patient care won the Livingston Award for local reporting. Her story on racial disparities in cancer clinical trials with Riley Wong in 2018 won the June L. Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism in online/multimedia reporting.

Her writing has appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and NPR. Previously, she worked at Bloomberg News, where her coverage included the unraveling of blood test maker Theranos and the 2014 Ebola outbreak. She received her master’s degree from the Toni Stabile Program for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University, where she was awarded a Pulitzer traveling fellowship.

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Key Missteps at the CDC Have Set Back Its Ability to Detect the Potential Spread of Coronavirus

The CDC designed a flawed test for COVID-19, then took weeks to figure out a fix so state and local labs could use it. New York still doesn’t trust the test’s accuracy.

Federal Regulators: Newark Beth Israel Put Patients in “Immediate Jeopardy”

The New Jersey hospital is taking corrective action after a government investigation spurred by ProPublica’s reporting found that its transplant team was failing to learn from surgical errors.

Students! ProPublica Wants to Pay for You to Attend a Conference in 2020

We’re giving away 20 scholarships to help students attend journalism conferences like NABJ-NAHJ, ONA and IRE. Apply!

The Family Wanted a Do Not Resuscitate Order. The Doctors Didn’t.

Andy Jurtschenko told his children that he didn’t want to be a burden on them. But after he suffered brain damage during a heart transplant at a New Jersey hospital, his medical team deflected their request for a DNR.

FBI Investigating Newark Beth Israel’s Transplant Program for Possible Fraud

The bureau is looking at whether the hospital may have defrauded Medicare and Medicaid as it kept a vegetative patient on life support for the sake of its metrics.

Doctor Who Advocated “Unethical” Care of Vegetative Patient Is Placed on Leave

Newark Beth Israel acted after our report that its transplant program kept a patient alive to improve its metrics, while barely consulting his family.

Feds to Investigate Hospital Alleged to Have Kept Vegetative Patient Alive to Game Transplant Survival Rates

Spurred by a ProPublica investigation, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will also carry out an inquiry.

“It’s Very Unethical”: Audio Shows Hospital Kept Vegetative Patient on Life Support to Boost Survival Rates

Darryl Young suffered brain damage during a heart transplant at Newark Beth Israel and never woke up. But, hardly consulting his family, doctors kept him alive for a year to avoid federal scrutiny.

Citing “Safety Concerns,” FDA Cautions National Marketer of Unproven Stem Cell Treatments

This month, we reported R3 Stem Cell was promoting unapproved birth tissue products for a wide range of diseases. This week, the FDA put the company on notice.

The Birth-Tissue Profiteers

How well-meaning donations end up fueling an unproven, virtually unregulated $2 billion stem cell industry.

Black Patients Miss Out On Promising Cancer Drugs

A ProPublica analysis found that black people and Native Americans are under-represented in clinical trials of new drugs, even when the treatment is aimed at a type of cancer that disproportionately affects them.

A Cancer Patient’s Guide to Clinical Trials

If you’re considering whether to enroll in a trial of an experimental drug, here’s what you need to know.

Have You Donated or Helped to Collect Birth Tissue?

ProPublica is seeking your help in finding out how birth tissue donated by mothers is used in research and by industry.

Immigrant Shelters Drug Traumatized Teenagers Without Consent

Whether they came to the U.S. alone, or were forcibly separated from their families at the border, despondent minors are often pressured into taking psychotropic drugs without approval from a parent or guardian.

FDA Repays Industry by Rushing Risky Drugs to Market

As pharma companies underwrite three-fourths of the FDA’s budget for scientific reviews, the agency is increasingly fast-tracking expensive drugs with significant side effects and unproven health benefits.

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