Joseph Shapiro
Joseph Shapiro is a NPR News Investigations correspondent.
Shapiro's major investigative stories include his reports on the way rising court fines and fees create an unequal system of justice for the poor and the rise of "modern day debtors' prisons," the failure of colleges and universities to punish for on-campus sexual assaults, the epidemic of sexual assault of people with intellectual disabilities, the problems with solitary confinement, the inadequacy of civil rights laws designed to get the elderly and people with disabilities out of nursing homes, and the little-known profits involved in the production of medical products from donated human cadavers.
His "Child Cases" series, reported with PBS Frontline and ProPublica, found two dozen cases in the U.S. and Canada where parents and caregivers were charged with killing children, but the charges were later reversed or dropped. Since that series, a Texas man who was the focus of one story was released from prison. And in California, a woman who was the subject of another story had her sentence commuted.
Shapiro joined NPR in November 2001 and spent eight years covering health, aging, disability, and children's and family issues on the Science Desk. He reported on the health issues of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and helped start NPR's 2005 Impact of War series with reporting from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center. He covered stories from Hurricane Katrina to the debate over overhauling the nation's health care system.
Before coming to NPR, Shapiro spent 19 years at U.S. News & World Report, as a Senior Writer on social policy and served as the magazine's Rome bureau chief, White House correspondent, and congressional reporter.
Among honors for his investigative journalism, Shapiro has received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, George Foster Peabody Award, George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, Sigma Delta Chi, IRE, Dart, Ruderman, and Gracie awards, and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Award.
Shapiro is the author of the award-winning book NO PITY: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (Random House/Three Rivers Press), which is widely read in disability studies classes.
Shapiro studied long-term care and end-of-life issues as a participant in the yearlong 1997 Kaiser Media Fellowship in Health program. In 1990, he explored the changing world of people with disabilities as an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.
Shapiro attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Carleton College. He's a native of Washington, DC, and lives there now with his family.
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It's still unclear why large numbers of soldiers in the 1991 Gulf War came home with unexplained illnesses. Now, faced with the possibility of a new war in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon is working to prevent a repeat of those health problems. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.
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In Alabama, college student Nick Dupree –- a young man who is so disabled that he can't move his body — took on the state health care system, and won.
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NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports on the impact this weekend's crash of the space shuttle Columbia will have on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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A new study from Denmark shows that people with diabetes can turn their health around with the help of intensive one-on-one counseling about what they eat and how much they exercise. And a Pennsylvania health insurance plan offers exactly that kind of personal care to diabetics. Hear from NPR's Richard Knox and NPR's Joseph Shapiro.
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We hear from NPR's Joseph Shapiro about a Pennsylvania health insurance plan that's offering that kind of personal care to its customers with diabetes.
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The military gives small doses of amphetamines to fighter pilots who must endure long flights without sleep. The policy is based on research by the Air Force and Columbia University that shows small doses improve performance. But the use of the drugs has been called into question at a hearing for two pilots who mistakenly bombed Canadian forces in Afghanistan. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.
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Six days a week, Beth Simon rides the city buses in her Pennsylvania city. If they ran on Sundays, she would ride them then, too. Beth Simon is 42 and has mental retardation. She's not trying to get anywhere on the buses; she's turned them into a community. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.
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Oregon's governor is set to say the state was wrong when it forcibly sterilized residents of state institutions decades ago. Virginia's governor made a similar apology earlier this year. But few of those who were sterilized are still alive. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.
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Dying from a terminal illness in America can be unnecessarily painful. In the last several years, foundations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to improve care for the dying. A new report, compiled by the national coalition Last Acts, grades the results of that effort, state by state. NPR's Joseph Shapiro went to a Hospice home in Washington, D.C. -- a place known for providing good care -- to find out why it's still so hard to help people die in comfort. Hear his report Tuesday on Morning Edition.
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A new state-by-state report gives the nation mediocre marks when it comes to providing good end-of-life care for the terminally ill. The report was compiled by Last Acts, a campaign by more than 1,000 medical groups and others seeking to improve care for the dying. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.