Corinne Purtill
Corinne Purtill reports on health, science and medicine for the Los Angeles Times, with a focus on how complex systems and policies shape people’s lives. Her reporting stands out for its combination of institutional detail, close attention to data and lived experience, and clear explanations of technically dense subjects. Her writing on science and human behavior has appeared in outlets including the New Yorker, the New York Times, Time Magazine and the BBC, and she has worked for international news organizations in London and Phnom Penh.
Space science and federal research institutions
Purtill devotes a significant portion of her coverage to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and to the federal decisions that shape its future. She has reported on the move to open the long-standing contract to manage JPL to competitive bidding for the first time, explaining how that shift forces Caltech to compete for control of the lab it has overseen since NASA’s inception.
In these stories she tracks contract values, timelines and the role of JPL as a federally funded research and development center, framing the management decision as a high-stakes choice for U.S. space science.
Her work follows JPL beyond governance into the lab’s financial and operational strain, including coverage of multiple rounds of layoffs that cut roughly a quarter of staff over two years.
She ties those job cuts to budgeting woes and project overruns, showing how fiscal missteps ripple through the workforce and threaten flagship missions. Purtill also covers JPL’s scientific portfolio, profiling planetary defense efforts such as the Near-Earth Object Surveyor infrared telescope and the debate over how to bring Mars samples back to Earth, connecting mission design to broader questions about national leadership in space science.
Public health systems, hospitals and funding
Purtill frequently reports on public hospitals and safety-net health systems, focusing on how they manage limited resources while serving high-need patients. She has detailed Los Angeles County’s push for hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency state funding for public hospitals, explaining how inpatient care for Medi-Cal patients and broader financial losses drive the request.
In her voter guide to Proposition 44, she lays out how the measure would require federally funded community health centers to devote at least 90% of their revenue to patient care and program services, translating budget language into direct implications for clinics and patients.
Her coverage of the intensive management program at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital follows a cohort of at-risk diabetic patients over several years.
She reports specific outcomes - such as bringing amputations among enrolled patients to zero and major improvements in blood sugar and blood pressure control - to show what targeted, sustained care can achieve. In a piece on “John and Jane Doe” patients at Los Angeles General Medical Center, she documents the hospital’s process for identifying unnamed patients and locating next of kin, treating hospital bureaucracy as a crucial part of patient safety and dignity.
Regulation, risk and emerging health issues
Purtill covers regulatory decisions with direct health consequences, often highlighting conflicts between political choices and medical evidence. She has reported on the withdrawal of a proposed federal rule that would have barred minors from using indoor tanning facilities, noting that the change clears a path for youth access despite dermatologists’ concerns.
In that story she brings in World Health Organization classifications and research on how tanning beds accelerate DNA mutations and increase melanoma risk, anchoring the policy reversal in established carcinogen science.
Her reporting on the unregulated use of peptides such as MOTS-c examines a growing, poorly supervised market for substances promoted for weight loss, energy and muscle gain. She explains that these compounds are widely sold online “for research use only” despite a lack of robust human data on dosage, long-term effects or appropriate indications.
In a separate piece, she explores what COVID-19 is teaching clinicians about the relationship between viral infection and cancer, citing analyses of large datasets that suggest higher rates of recurrence and metastasis among cancer survivors who contracted COVID in the early, pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic.
Purtill also tracks policy and practice meant to protect health in less obvious settings, such as her coverage of mandated hydration breaks at the World Cup. Drawing on the U.S. team doctor’s perspective, she links tournament cooling rules to the prevention of dehydration, heat exhaustion and other severe outcomes, making sports policy legible as occupational health protection.
Patients, behavior and lived experience
Across her health beat, Purtill returns to the experiences of patients and vulnerable communities, especially where systems fail or adapt under pressure. Her coverage of long COVID describes it as an infection-associated chronic condition affecting multiple organ systems, and follows thousands of people disabled by the condition as they seek care, recognition and answers. She pairs clinical descriptions of fatigue, cardiovascular problems, cognitive issues and pain with reporting on the challenges patients face in navigating benefits and medical support.
In a story on the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, she documents the restoration of the “Press 3” option that connects LGBTQ+ youth directly to counselors trained to support them. She explains how the reintroduction of that pathway changes what happens when vulnerable callers reach the line, framing a small change in menu options as a critical piece of crisis infrastructure. Taken together, these pieces show a reporter who treats health and science not only as technical fields but as systems of power, behavior and care, consistently connecting institutional decisions to the individuals who live with their consequences.
4 more health journalists.
Abida Tasnim
Abida Tasnim is a health writer for The Daily Star who focuses on clear, practical guidance that helps readers recognise risks early and act before everyday illnesses turn into wider public health problems. She reports on infectious disease prevention, using measles coverage to show how outbreaks start with individual decisions and behaviours, not just hospital statistics. Her work explains what happens during an outbreak and then anchors the story in simple steps people can take, such as avoiding crowded places when symptoms appear, practising good hygiene, and seeking medical advice early. She writes direct, action‑oriented health explainers that turn clinical questions about contagion and disease burden into everyday choices. Across her beat, she stresses early recognition, timely care, and prevention as the foundations of healthier communities.
Adrián Carballo Casla
Adrián Carballo Casla stands out for turning complex cohort data on ageing into clear, food‑level advice on what older adults should eat to protect brain health and slow chronic disease. He is a researcher in nutritional epidemiology focused on ageing and chronic disease prevention and a postdoctoral researcher in geriatric epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, writing health explainers for The Conversation. He reports on how diet quality, especially Mediterranean and Mind‑style patterns, shapes dementia risk, grey matter loss and neurocognitive ageing, and how healthy versus pro‑inflammatory diets alter multimorbidity trajectories. His articles translate findings on flavonoids, polyphenols, folate, omega‑3 fats and dietary nitrates into specific food choices and small, practical changes. Much of his coverage is anchored in his own studies on multimorbidity, high‑risk older adults and tailored dietary recommendations, often syndicated to other outlets.
Ahmed Elbediwy
Ahmed Elbediwy brings a lab-based understanding of cancer biology and clinical biochemistry to public-facing health reporting, linking drug mechanisms and molecular pathways to everyday choices about medicines and products. He writes for The Conversation on weight-loss injections, cancer overdiagnosis and anti-ageing supplements, focusing on obesity medicine, cancer signalling, screening trade-offs, skincare and supplement science. His pieces on GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro explain why some people do not respond, how gut hormones and appetite signals work, and where psychological support and nutrition fit alongside prescriptions. He co-authors explainers on cancer risk and overdiagnosis and on whether supplements can reverse ageing, separating established knowledge from emerging research. An award-winning senior lecturer at Kingston University, he favours clear, structured explainers, careful definition of key terms and evidence-based appraisal over hype.
Amanda Sheppeard
Amanda Sheppeard is a managing editor and health journalist known for long, detailed explainers that connect complex clinical research, disability policy and political narratives with the daily realities of doctors and patients. She works at The Medical Republic across editorial leadership and commercial content while reporting widely on medicine for its specialist titles. Her real beat spans autism, disability policy, autoimmune disease, infectious threats and system pressures in primary care and hospitals. She covers subjects such as autism diagnosis and the NDIS, rheumatology’s clinical shifts, weight-loss agents in rheumatoid arthritis, infection control, antimicrobial resistance and new modalities like CAR T-cell therapy and microneedles. She reports by doing the synthesis inside the story, linking trial design, molecular targets, funding rules and policy changes to concrete decisions and workflows in clinics and hospitals.