Scott Hensley
Scott Hensley edits stories about health, biomedical research and pharmaceuticals for NPR's Science desk. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has led the desk's reporting on the development of vaccines against the coronavirus.
Hensley has worked on award-winning investigations in collaboration with journalistic partners.
He was the lead NPR editor on an investigation with the Center for Public Integrity in 2018 that exposed drug industry influence on the choices of preferred medicines by Medicaid programs. The work won the 2019 Gerald Loeb Award for audio reporting.
In 2017, Hensley was the lead NPR editor on an investigation with Kaiser Health News that showed how the pharmaceutical industry exploits government incentives intended to encourage the development of treatments for rare diseases. The stories won the 2019 digital award from the National Institute for Health Care Management.
Hensley has been editing in his current role since 2019. He joined NPR in 2009 to launch , a blog that expanded to become a digital destination for NPR health coverage.
Before NPR, Hensley was a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal. He was the founding editor of The Wall Street Journal Health Blog, which focused on the intersection of health and business. As a reporter, he covered the drug industry and the Human Genome Project.
Hensley served on the board of the Association of Health Care Journalists from 2012 to 2020.
He has a bachelor's degree in natural sciences from Johns Hopkins University and a master's in journalism from Columbia University.
Before becoming a journalist, Hensley worked in the medical device industry. He remains, now and forever, a lover of Dobermans, lacrosse and Callinectes sapidus.
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The Food and Drug Administration's approval of a new drug for leishmaniasis came with a voucher that can be redeemed to speed up the approval of a much more lucrative drug in the future. -
Massachusetts is the latest state that was gung-ho on health care overhaul to concede it had failed to make it easy for people to enroll. Oregon and Maryland also scrapped their online exchanges. -
Pfizer, founded in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1849, would become a British company by combining with AstraZeneca. The new company would get a much lower tax rate by moving its legal headquarters overseas.
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Sovaldi has been found to be remarkably effective in curing most patients with common forms of hepatitis C in a matter of months. But the clinical success comes at a high price. -
As infectious diseases come under control in Africa, other illnesses common in the West are becoming problems. GlaxoSmithKline is opening a research lab to promote research by African scientists. -
The dolls get sick on cue and come with a medical kit that can relieve their symptoms. But the electronics inside the dolls can get hot enough to cause blisters or burns. -
The battery-powered device sends electrical pulses through the skin of the forehead. People who used the headband in a study had fewer migraines and took less headache medicine. -
In the absence of evidence about what works best to discourage drug use among teens and kids, doctors are left with their own judgment and clinical experience to fall back on. -
Narcotic painkillers are risky for small kids. But so are some popular pills to treat diabetes, high blood pressure and irregular heartbeats. -
There was enough information for an influential panel of doctors, nurses and scientists to recommend against taking the antioxidants vitamin E and beta carotene to prevent heart attacks and cancer.
