Max Blau covers health care, public health and the environment for ProPublica's South unit.
Blau was previously an independent journalist working with Georgia Health News as part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, a collaboration that has investigated Georgia Power’s toxic waste disposal practices, racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths and a controversial loophole to fund nursing homes. His work has appeared in a variety of national publications, including the Atlantic, the New York Times, Politico magazine, Time the Washington Post, and Stat and Stateline, where he covered health care as a Southern correspondent. He also worked as a staff writer for CNN, Atlanta magazine and the Atlanta alt-weekly Creative Loafing. His story about a death-row doctor who built an empire from treating Georgia inmates won the SPJ Green Eyeshade Award for investigative reporting in 2020.
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The state’s small electricity providers aren’t required to delay disconnecting seriously ill customers who depend on medical devices, putting lives at risk.
A new EPA proposal could soon limit the toxic emissions that pollute Birmingham’s historically Black north side. It could also complicate plans to reopen a shuttered plant owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice.
A transplant program in Memphis took pride in replacing the livers of patients turned away by other hospitals. One patient’s liver transplant illustrates the promise and peril of operating on people with serious risk factors.
Dr. James Eason, who earned acclaim by operating on Steve Jobs, led the transplant center named in his honor at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis. An internal analysis by Eason’s own team details the preventable deaths under his watch.
Bluestone Coke, owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, signed a consent decree that could allow its Birmingham plant to reopen under stricter oversight.
Industrial plants in Birmingham, Alabama, have polluted the air and land in its historic Black communities for over a century. In an epicenter of environmental injustice, officials continue to fail to right the wrongs plaguing the city’s north side.
Documents reveal Georgia Power went to great lengths to advocate for risky waste storage. After a ProPublica investigation exposed this practice, the EPA is trying to block the move.
The world’s largest chemical maker, BASF, produces ingredients for America’s most popular products, from soaps to surface cleaners to dishwasher detergent. Emissions from their U.S. plants elevate cancer risks for an estimated 1.5 million people.
More than a thousand people talked to ProPublica about living in hot spots for cancer-causing air pollution. Most never got a warning from the EPA. They are rallying neighbors, packing civic meetings and signing petitions for reform.
The power company failed to build a stronger system after hurricanes repeatedly pummeled Louisiana. Then Ida knocked out power for more than a week. “I don’t think it’s just Mother Nature,” said one resident. “This is neglect.”
Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs.
Georgia Power paid top dollar to buy land from residents living near waste sites at its power plants. Environmentalists fear it’s a tactic to forestall the cleanup bill from new regulations for coal ash.
Ronnie Rollins used a controversial loophole to secure $300 million in bonus payments for his nonprofit nursing home chain. A federal investigation called the payments “inappropriate,” and Georgia is caught in a multimillion dollar dispute.
Of Georgia’s more than 1,100 virus deaths, 12% are from long-term care facilities in a region that holds just 3% of the population. As the state reopens, staff know that risks of exposure will only increase.
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