Anna Maria Barry-Jester
Anna Maria Barry-Jester is a reporter covering global health.
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Anna Maria Barry-Jester is a reporter with ProPublica covering global health. She joined ProPublica in 2022 from KFF Health News, where she covered public health.
Barry-Jester has reported extensively on public health and environmental issues, including the Flint water crisis, gun deaths in the United States, catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and the health impacts of pollutants in India. She spent several years documenting and reporting the first international news stories on an epidemic of chronic kidney disease affecting agricultural workers in Central America and Southeast Asia for the Center for Public Integrity and other outlets. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she reported on the troubled public health response as well as the impact on state and local health departments for “This American Life,” the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations.
Barry-Jester’s work has been honored with a Gerald Loeb Award, a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, an AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award, the Investigative Data Journalism prize from the Online News Association and a communications award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, among others.
The Second Trump White House Could Drastically Reshape Infectious Disease Research. Here’s What’s at Stake.
Donald Trump’s pick to lead the federal health agency has vowed to replace hundreds of staffers and shift research away from infectious diseases and vaccines. Such an overhaul could imperil the development of life-saving treatments, experts warn.
Are Abortion Bans Across America Causing Deaths? The States That Passed Them Are Doing Little to Find Out.
The same political leaders who enacted abortion bans oversee the state committees that review maternal deaths. These committees haven’t tracked the laws’ impacts, and most haven’t finished examining cases from the year the bans went into effect.
by Kavitha Surana, Mariam Elba, Cassandra Jaramillo, Robin Fields and Ziva Branstetter,
Georgia Dismissed All Members of Maternal Mortality Committee After ProPublica Obtained Internal Details of Two Deaths
In a letter, the state’s public health commissioner said the action was taken because “confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals.”
by Amy Yurkanin,
Swept Away
From birth certificates to loved ones’ ashes, these are just some of the belongings cities take when they clear homeless encampments.
by Ruth Talbot, Asia Fields, Nicole Santa Cruz and Maya Miller, design by Zisiga Mukulu and Ruth Talbot, illustrations by Matt Rota for ProPublica,
Facing Unchecked Syphilis Outbreak, Great Plains Tribes Sought Federal Help. Months Later, No One Has Responded.
The syphilis rate among Indigenous people in the Great Plains is higher than at any point in 80 years of records. More than 3% of Native American babies born in South Dakota last year had the preventable and curable — but potentially fatal — disease.
Syphilis Is Killing Babies. The U.S. Government Is Failing to Stop the Disease From Spreading.
The only drug that treats syphilis during pregnancy is in short supply. Untreated, the disease can pass to newborns, killing them or leaving them with disabilities. As cases rise sharply, the government isn’t doing much to prevent shortages.
How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits
A vaccine against tuberculosis has never been closer to reality. But its development slowed after its corporate owner focused on more profitable vaccines.
The CDC Scientist Who Couldn’t Get Monkeypox Treatment
As a Black man and a senior CDC scientist, William L. Jeffries IV knows a lot about health inequities and infectious diseases in America. Still, it took visits to 3 doctors — and a desperate call to a colleague — for him to get treatment for monkeypox.
by Anna Maria Barry-Jester, photography by Braylen Dion, special to ProPublica,