what we do right here at ProPublica: investigative reporting that sparks change and holds energy to account. As we close to the tip of February, we wished to share 5 examples of how our investigations have already accomplished that this yr.
From Colorado to Massachusetts to Texas, ProPublica investigations, a lot of them revealed in collaboration with native companions, led to proposed modifications to legal guidelines and practices. And whereas we report on the main points of how these modifications occur, we goal to by no means lose sight of how these modifications may have an effect on precise folks. This will likely imply, for instance, folks beneath New York’s guardianship system receiving higher care, or survivors of rape in Massachusetts having the ability to pursue justice and not using a deadline.
Learn on to be taught extra about our latest reporting that’s making an impression.
Colorado Marijuana Regulators Contemplate Main Adjustments to How Labs Take a look at for Contaminants
Greater than a decade in the past, Colorado created the primary regulated leisure marijuana market within the nation. Lawmakers promised the state’s voters that the transfer to legalize marijuana would drive out the black market and create a safer atmosphere by means of regulation. However, as Denver Gazette reporters Christopher Osher and Evan Wyloge revealed in a January investigation in partnership with ProPublica, hemp derivatives have jeopardized that promise.
For years, hemp, which is a detailed cousin of marijuana and is cheaper to provide, seeped into the Colorado marijuana market. Whereas Colorado permits the usage of hemp in some gadgets equivalent to clothes and twine, the state banned corporations from utilizing it to make intoxicating merchandise offered within the state. Our investigation discovered that regardless of the ban, the Colorado legislature and regulators did not undertake vital laws that different states have employed to maintain dangerous hemp merchandise off the cabinets. One end result, some marijuana producers say, is that some corporations are sending samples and merchandise that they know will cross necessary testing to labs; dispensaries, in the meantime, would possibly obtain merchandise that may very well be contaminated with chemical solvents, fungus or pesticides.
However, as Osher and Wyloge reported this month, Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division could now require unbiased labs or exterior distributors to gather product samples for testing earlier than they are often offered. That will take away marijuana producers’ skill to decide on which merchandise they ship in.
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The Clear Labels Act Would Change What You Know About Your Prescription Treatment
U.S. senators launched laws this month that may require prescription drug labels to establish the place the treatment was made, including momentum to a yearslong marketing campaign to carry extra transparency to the customarily elusive generic drug trade.
Present labels usually listing solely a distributor or repackager of a medicine and typically present no info in any respect. The Clear Labels Act, launched by Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., requires labels to reveal the unique producer in addition to the suppliers that produced key substances.
A spokesperson for the commerce group for brand-name drugmakers instructed ProPublica that the trade would “welcome conversations about the right way to strengthen the biopharmaceutical provide chain.” The generic drug lobbying group mentioned that further labeling necessities would impose “important prices in change for restricted returns,” including that drug producers already disclose nation of origin info beneath U.S. Customs and Border Safety guidelines.
Our reporters needed to file public data requests and sue the FDA in federal courtroom to acquire details about the place generic medication are made and whether or not authorities inspectors had flagged these factories for security or high quality issues. We in the end created a first-of-its-kind device that enables customers to seek out the knowledge themselves.
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Mass. Governor Proposes Eliminating Statute of Limitations for Rape When DNA Proof Exists
Final yr, WBUR and ProPublica instructed the story of a girl who, based on a police report, had been raped and stabbed after accepting a journey in 2005 from a person who mentioned he acknowledged her from faculty. DNA testing later related a person accused of a number of assaults to her case, however prosecutors needed to drop fees beneath Massachusetts’ statute of limitations.
Beneath Massachusetts regulation, prosecutors have solely 15 years to file fees after an alleged rape — and it’s almost not possible to carry fees previous that statute of limitations even when new proof emerges. That locations Massachusetts behind virtually each different state within the nation. Makes an attempt to increase that window have failed yearly since 2011 partially as a result of protection attorneys have opposed modifications, arguing an extended deadline dangers violating the rights of the accused.
WBUR’s Willoughby Mariano reported that Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey needs to remove that deadline for rape instances when DNA proof exists. The availability, which is included in Healey’s funds proposal for the 2027 fiscal yr, must cross each chambers of the state Legislature. If enacted, it could have an effect on instances the place the statute of limitations has not but expired and future instances, however not older instances.
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We Discovered New York’s Guardianship System in Shambles. Now State Lawmakers Say They Have a Plan to Assist Repair It.
Two years after ProPublica’s Jake Pearson first documented New York’s dire scarcity of guardians — and the substandard care some present — state lawmakers launched laws to spice up spending on the system by $15 million a yr. It will be an unprecedented money infusion for a paperwork that has lengthy struggled to look after the tens of hundreds of disabled or aged New Yorkers who can not look after themselves.
The brand new invoice, known as the Good Guardianship Act, goals to assist probably the most susceptible phase of this inhabitants: those that are too poor to pay for a personal guardian and who don’t have any household or mates prepared to serve. Advocates say the Good Guardianship Act is probably the most promising step so far in enhancing the system — if it might get the assist of Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The proposal follows a 2024 ProPublica investigation that exposed how the state’s guardianship system was failing this group specifically by conducting little to no oversight of guardians, a few of whom supplied substandard care and exploited these they have been charged with taking care of. The tales additionally prompted the state legal professional common to open an investigation into a number of guardianship suppliers and spurred the courtroom system to nominate a particular counsel to enact reforms.
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After Years of Silence, Texas Medical Board Points Coaching for Medical doctors on How one can Legally Present Abortions
For the primary time since Texas criminalized abortion, the state’s medical regulator is instructing docs on once they can legally terminate a being pregnant to guard the lifetime of the affected person — steering physicians have lengthy sought as girls died and docs feared imprisonment for intervening.
The brand new mandated coaching for any physician offering obstetric care goes over 9 case research for physicians the place abortion is taken into account authorized to guard the lifetime of the affected person. A number of the eventualities within the coaching are just like situations ProPublica investigated, equivalent to miscarriages the place a affected person’s water breaks earlier than time period however there may be nonetheless a fetal heartbeat or when somebody is experiencing issues from an incomplete abortion.
ProPublica’s reporting has proven that being pregnant turned much more harmful within the state after the regulation took impact: Sepsis charges spiked for girls struggling a being pregnant loss, as did emergency room visits through which miscarrying sufferers wanted a blood transfusion; not less than 4 girls within the state died after they didn’t obtain well timed reproductive care. Greater than 100 OB-GYNs mentioned the state’s abortion ban was in charge.
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