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 Shots, 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.
-
Donald Trump drew fire in recent debates for his lack of specifics on how he would change the country's health care system. He released a plan Wednesday that is unlikely to satisfy critics. -
Recommendations for who should get mammograms or take cholesterol-lowering drugs are among the medical guidelines that have recently changed. -
The group of patients that was treated more intensively did 25 percent better than the one that was treated to the traditional target. But some side effects nearly doubled with intensive treatment. -
An NPR poll found that a majority of people favor regulation of e-cigarette. Support rose with education. Nearly two-thirds of people with college or graduate degrees supported regulation.
-
A voucher that can get a drug through the Food and Drug Administration faster was created to reward companies that develop medicines for neglected diseases. The market for vouchers is heating up. -
One reason health insurers are looking to get bigger is that the hospitals and doctor groups across the negotiating table have also gotten bigger. -
Despite National Progress, Colorectal Cancer Hot Spots RemainSince 1970, the national colorectal cancer death rate has been cut in half. But progress has lagged in the Lower Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and counties in eastern Virginia and North Carolina.
-
Why Would A Fish Make Its Own Sunscreen?Research suggests that genes that make a natural sunscreen jumped from algae to an ancestor of vertebrates hundreds of millions of years ago. Some animals kept the ability. Others didn't. -
Over four months of tracking and testing, French researchers mapped the hops that bacteria made from one person to another. Within a month, a third of patients were newly colonized with staph. -
The quick rise of measles infections in the wake of cases reported among Disneyland visitors underscores how even a small dip in vaccination rates can allow the virus to spread.
