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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In the heated, political back-and-forth of the health care debate, doctors' voices aren't always heard. A new, comprehensive nationwide survey finds that 73 percent of doctors support the inclusion of a public option. -
President-elect Barack Obama has named a decorated Vietnam veteran as his choice to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. Retired Gen. Eric Shinseki is a former Army chief of staff who was known for criticizing the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq with too few troops.
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Up to 20 percent of soldiers who have fought in Iraq say they sustained a brain injury. Most with a severe brain injury never return to active duty. Army Spc. Freddy Meyers was shot in the head last May and initially could neither talk nor walk. Now he wants to go back to duty. -
Following the controversy over shoddy care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other hospitals, the Army has changed the way it treats injured soldiers like Sgt. Scott Metcalf. Still, problems such as shortages of trained staff remain.
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Sgt. Tim Ngo was 20 years old when he almost died from a head wound in an Iraq grenade attack. Though years of therapy have helped him recover, his relationship with his mother has deteriorated. Now, he's starting a new life in Texas, and the rift with his mother remains. -
In 1878, an outbreak of yellow fever crippled Memphis, Tenn., fueled by unusually warm temperatures. America's yellow fever epidemic has again become relevant, as a case study of how warm temperatures shift disease trends. -
A lot of medical equipment requires that patients stand or climb, activities that people with disabilities often can't do. As a result, people with disabilities sometimes skip routine exams or aren't examined properly. -
At 85, Eunice Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, is still working tirelessly to open opportunities to people with mental retardation. In 40 years, the games have grown to reach 2.25 million people in 160 countries.
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Some advocates for the blind are pressing the federal government to change the way the government prints paper money. They want new bills that help blind people distinguish between different denominations, so a $20 bill feels different from a $10 or a $5 bill. But not all blind people agree that a redesign is in order.
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One hundred years ago, German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer first described the puzzling symptoms now known as Alzheimer's disease. Billions of dollars have since gone to research for a cure, but some scientists think that money is better spent on prevention and care.
