Post-Gazette, ProPublica capture national award for investigation of breathing devices

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and ProPublica captured one of the country’s most competitive awards for health care reporting for their 2023 series, “With Every Breath,” which chronicled the massive recall of Philips Respironics breathing machines and the breakdowns in government oversight during the health crisis.

The joint project received first place in the category of business reporting in the 2023 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism for stories last year that revealed how Philips, which runs two facilities near Pittsburgh, received thousands of complaints about its defective sleep apnea machines and ventilators but kept the complaints secret while sales of the devices soared into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other first-place award winners in the contest, sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists, include the New York Times, Reuters, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Guardian, KFF Health News and Cox Media Group TV, Science, and KARE 11 for a host of stories ranging from hearts donated by patients on life support to critical medication errors.

The contest, which is in its 20th year, drew 426 entries in 14 categories, according to the association’s announcement. There were 14 first-place winners.

“We made some pretty dramatic changes this year to the contest, based on feedback we’d received — and we’re thrilled that the number of entrants remained as high as ever,” Christine Herman, AHCJ board member and chair of the contest committee, said in the announcement. “It’s a privilege to oversee a contest that aims to highlight the best of the best in health reporting — to honor the passion and drive of journalists who go deep on stories, share them with the world and make an impact.”

The “With Every Breath” project, which was led by Michael D. Sallah of the Post-Gazette and Debbie Cenziper of ProPublica and included reporters Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson of the Post-Gazette, found that Philips received more than 3,700 reports dating back more than a decade about an industrial foam in the popular devices that was capable of degrading and sending dangerous particles and fumes into masks of sleeping patients. Despite federal law, the device maker failed to turn over the complaints to the government until after the 2021 recall.

In the aftermath of the project, which included students from Northwestern University’s Medill Investigative Lab, Philips agreed to stop making the devices in the United States for years to come under a consent decree reached earlier this month with the Justice Department, all but ending the company’s position as one of the top makers of breathing machines in the nation.

In addition, the stories prompted two leading U.S. senators to call for a government investigation into the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of Philips and the medical device industry. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, agreed to lead the probe.

The awards will be presented in June in New York City at the Association of Health Care Journalists annual conference.

The investigation has previously won a Polk Award and was named a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting by Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center.