Jim Reed
Jim Reed is a health reporter at the BBC, covering national health policy and medical developments through stories that follow their consequences for patients and families. His reporting centres on how major decisions about new drugs, compensation schemes and public inquiries translate into lived experience, often using data, official documents and personal testimony in the same piece. He moved into the BBC’s national health unit during the Covid pandemic and now works permanently on the health desk, bringing experience from radio, television and online news to a specialist beat.
Covid inquiry and pandemic accountability
Reed is a central voice in the BBC’s coverage of the Covid-19 inquiry, presenting a weekly podcast that distils the hearings into a clear narrative of what has been said and what is at stake. On disability-focused programming he recaps testimony from disabled witnesses, highlighting how decisions on shielding, care and support services affected people who were already at higher risk. His pandemic coverage extends into broader accountability reporting, including episodes examining how billions of pounds were lost on unusable personal protective equipment and what that reveals about procurement and emergency planning. He has devoted sustained attention to long-running health controversies, notably the infected blood scandal, and has received industry recognition for his work on the inquiry, including a medical journalism award. Across this strand, his distinguishing trait is a focus on formal evidence and individual voices together, treating public inquiries as both legal processes and human stories.
NHS policy, new drugs and compensation schemes
Reed consistently reports on how NHS policy decisions shape access to cutting-edge treatments and financial support. In his coverage of teplizumab, the first drug to delay the onset of type 1 diabetes, he explains how the immunotherapy works, how many extra years without symptoms it can offer, and what the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends for England and Wales.
He sets out the published course price, notes that the NHS has agreed a confidential discount, and details eligibility estimates for adults and children over the first year and beyond.
The article describes the practical realities of treatment, including the requirement for pre-symptom blood tests to detect immune attack on the pancreas and a 14-day course of daily intravenous infusions in hospital. Reed also follows complex compensation schemes, such as the vaccine damage payment programme, where he reports on how running costs have doubled and what that means for claimants and taxpayers.
His work on infected blood payouts tracks changes to rules on how lump-sum payments can be passed on through an estate when a beneficiary dies before a specified deadline, showing how legal wording affects families over decades. This strand of his reporting is defined by precise attention to eligibility criteria, timelines, pricing and administrative detail, always tied back to the people who must navigate these systems.
Data-led flu and vaccine coverage
Reed frequently uses charts and official surveillance data to explain the progress of seasonal flu and its interaction with vaccination. In his “flu in five charts” reporting, he breaks down how a particular winter outbreak differs from previous years, using visualisations to show trends in case numbers, hospitalisations and age groups most affected. He works closely with colleagues specialising in verification and data analysis, co-authoring pieces that read through weekly figures to answer whether flu has peaked and what the numbers suggest about pressures on health services. These articles focus on clear, accessible explanations of epidemiological concepts, avoiding jargon while still grounding conclusions in the underlying data series.
The distinguishing feature in this stream of work is the use of simple graphs and straightforward language to guide readers through complex surveillance systems and what they mean for vaccination campaigns and winter planning.
Everyday health, sports medicine and patient stories
Alongside policy and data, Reed writes pieces that connect medical technology and everyday health questions to individual experience.
His profile of footballer Christian Eriksen explains how a small implanted device monitors heart rhythm and can deliver life-saving shocks, setting out the basics of cardiology in terms that match the player’s account of returning to elite sport. In explainer-style articles on caffeine, he explores why the same dose can leave some people alert and others feeling little effect, touching on genetics, metabolism and tolerance in a concise format that speaks to daily habits.
Even in highly technical stories such as teplizumab, he invests significant space in patient and family narratives, following one young person through repeated hospital infusions and the hope of delaying insulin dependence. His background across flagship BBC news and current affairs programmes, from youth-focused radio bulletins to television investigations, underpins a style that brings complex health issues to a broad audience without losing specificity. Taken together, these pieces show a reporter who uses individual cases to illuminate how medicine works in practice, whether in a hospital ward, a football stadium or everyday life.
4 more health journalists.
Alanna Smith
Alanna Smith is a national health reporter whose work links health policy and politics to real access to care, with a constant focus on health equity, infectious disease and the toxic drug crisis. She reports for The Globe and Mail on infectious diseases, hospitals and long-term care, mental health, drug policy and the pressures on health systems in Western Canada. Her stories connect big-picture decisions to patients, families, front-line workers and volunteers, showing how funding, privatization and federal standards shape public care. She has covered trauma care inequities, proposed public‑private models in Alberta, drug toxicity and overdose policy, respiratory virus surges, measles elimination, gene‑editing advances and gender‑affirming health care laws. Her work combines narrative reporting, data, legal and policy analysis, and has been recognized by national journalism and press freedom organizations.
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is a historian and author whose journalism uses the past to explain present-day issues. He writes for the Winnipeg Free Press, including the Now & Then column, which examines current events through history. His subjects include public health, disease, medical treatment, health systems, politics, social conflict, strikes, wars, antisemitism and Canadian public life. His polio reporting traces Manitoba epidemics, hospital pressures, treatment, mortality and the arrival of vaccines through archival data and medical history. He also writes about the Winnipeg General Strike and Jewish communities, including discrimination, rights and security. His work draws on books about Canadian political leaders, Jewish history and the wartime economy, including The Dollar A Year Men. He writes long-form, analytical pieces that combine dates, statistics, policy decisions and narrative storytelling to connect people and institutions with broader historical change.
Angela Amato
Angela Amato is a digital news producer with CTV News, and her coverage is distinct for linking health research and public safety concerns to legal and policy decisions that shape daily life. She reports on health, justice, politics, business, arts and culture, crime and public-interest stories. Her health work covers academic and clinical research, including studies on vaping and lung blood flow, exercise tolerance and early heart dysfunction in young adults. She also reports on motorcycle gang arrests, homicide and death investigations, Indigenous justice stories, wildfire evacuations, ambulance contracts, property taxes, labour negotiations and political advocacy rules. She explains complex findings in plain language and stays close to documents, data and expert sources. Her background includes investigative and daily newsrooms, and she has earned nominations for national journalism awards.
Apoorva Mandavilli
Apoorva Mandavilli covers the collision of infectious disease science, vaccine policy and public health agencies for The New York Times, following how research, regulation and politics shape outbreaks and access to vaccines. She reports on science and global health with a steady focus on infectious diseases and pandemics, including Covid-19, mpox, H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis, treating them as ongoing global threats. Her work explains complex epidemiology and virology in clear narratives about risk, evidence and the consequences of scientific decisions. She repeatedly returns to vaccine policy, law and misinformation, tracing how court fights and agency disputes affect immunization schedules and public trust. She also reports on global health programs, funding cuts and inequity in care and technology. A longtime science journalist and former founding editor in chief of Spectrum, she has written widely on science and health and received major honors for medical science reporting and pandemic coverage.