Jean Heller

Last updated

Jean Heller is an American writer and former investigative journalist. She is best known for publishing the news of the Tuskegee syphilis study in 1972, [1] [2] and reporting that the claims by the United States of an Iraqi buildup on the Saudi Arabian border during the Gulf War in 1990 were not accurate. [3] [4] She has reported for the St. Petersburg Times , Newsday and the Associated Press.

Contents

Education

Jean Heller graduated from The Ohio State University School of Journalism in 1964.

Career

In 1972, Associated Press colleague Edith Lederer provided Heller with evidence she had received from whistleblower Peter Buxtun detailing that, for four decades, people enrolled in the Tuskegee study had been deliberately denied treatment for syphilis. [5] Years later, Heller called the story "one of the grossest violations of human rights I can imagine". [6] Her article exposing the unethical study was published in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972, and it became front-page news in the New York Times the following day. The exposé earned Heller the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award, and the George Polk Award. [7] [8]

Heller also writes the Deuce Mora series of novels, which feature a fictional Chicago newspaper columnist. [9]

Personal life

Heller lives in North Carolina. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Press International</span> American international news agency

United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th century. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main U.S. rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuskegee Syphilis Study</span> 1932–1972 human experiment in Alabama, United States

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis. The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, though by the end of the study medical advancements meant it was entirely treatable. The men were not informed of the nature of the experiment, and more than 100 died as a result.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuskegee University</span> Private university in Alabama, US

Tuskegee University, formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature.

Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog reporting" or "accountability reporting".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Russa Moton</span> American educator and author (1867–1940)

Robert Russa Moton was an American educator and author. He served as an administrator at Hampton Institute. In 1915 he was named principal of Tuskegee Institute, after the death of founder Booker T. Washington, a position he held for 20 years until retirement in 1935.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Gray (attorney)</span> American attorney and activist

Fred David Gray is an American civil rights attorney, preacher, activist, and state legislator from Alabama. He handled many prominent civil rights cases, such as Browder v. Gayle, and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1970, along with Thomas Reed, both from Tuskegee. They were the first black state legislators in Alabama in the 20th century. He served as the president of the National Bar Association in 1985, and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of the Alabama State Bar.

The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is a journalism award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were established in December 1968 by a group of reporters who covered Kennedy's campaigns. Winners are judged by more than 50 journalists each year, led by a committee of six independent journalists. The awards honor reporting "on issues that reflect Robert F. Kennedy's concerns, including human rights, social justice and the power of individual action in the United States and around the world. Entries include insights into the causes, conditions and remedies of injustice and critical analysis of relevant public policies, programs, attitudes and private endeavors." The awards are known as the "poor people's Pulitzers" in media circles.

<i>Miss Evers Boys</i> 1997 made-for-television historical drama by HBO

Miss Evers' Boys is an American made-for-television drama starring Alfre Woodard and Laurence Fishburne that first aired on February 22, 1997, and is based on the true story of the four-decade-long Tuskegee Syphilis Study. It was directed by Joseph Sargent and adapted by Walter Bernstein from the 1992 stage play of the same name, written by David Feldshuh. It received twelve nominations for the 1997 Primetime Emmy Awards, ultimately winning five, including Outstanding Television Movie and the President's Award.

Michael Rezendes is an American journalist and a member of the global investigative team at Associated Press. He is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative work for The Boston Globe. Since joining the Globe he has covered presidential, state and local politics, and was a weekly essayist, roving national correspondent, city hall bureau chief, and the deputy editor for national news.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Buxtun</span> Tuskegee syphilis experiment whistleblower

Peter Buxtun is a former employee of the United States Public Health Service who became known as the whistleblower responsible for ending the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Associated Press</span> American multinational nonprofit news agency

The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major U.S. daily newspapers and radio and television broadcasters. Since the award was established in 1917, the AP has earned 58 Pulitzer Prizes, including 35 for photography. The AP is also known for its widely used AP Stylebook, its AP polls tracking NCAA sports, and its election polls and results during US elections.

Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak is an American journalist and currently works for the Associated Press as its Washington investigations editor. She previously reported for the AP from 1997 to 2000. She formerly worked for National Public Radio, where she led the science desk, the Center for Public Integrity, and at Bloomberg News for 10 years, and has also worked as a reporter for newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer. She is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award, one of journalism's most prestigious honors.

Michael Hudson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist. He is currently head of investigations at the Guardian US.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guatemala syphilis experiments</span> Human experimentation conducted by US doctors in Guatemala

The Guatemala syphilis experiments were United States-led human experiments conducted in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. The experiments were led by physician John Charles Cutler, who also participated in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Doctors infected 1,300 people, including at least 600 soldiers and people from various impoverished groups with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid, without the informed consent of the subjects. Only 700 of them received treatment. In total, 5,500 people were involved in all research experiments, of whom 83 died by the end of 1953, though it is unknown whether or not the inoculations were responsible for all these deaths. Serology studies continued through 1953 involving the same vulnerable populations in addition to children from state-run schools, an orphanage, and rural towns, though the intentional infection of patients ended with the original study.

Susan Mokotoff Reverby is a Wellesley College professor. She has written on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and she uncovered the syphilis experiments in Guatemala.

John Charles Cutler was a senior surgeon, and the acting chief of the venereal disease program in the United States Public Health Service. After his death, his involvement in several controversial and unethical medical studies of syphilis was revealed, including the Guatemala and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Ganim</span> American journalist

Sara Elizabeth Ganim is an American journalist, now a correspondent for CNN. Previously she was a reporter for The Patriot-News, a daily newspaper in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There she broke the story that featured the Sandusky scandal and the Second Mile charity. For the Sandusky/Penn State coverage, "Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News Staff" won a number of national awards including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, making Ganim the third-youngest winner of a Pulitzer. The award cited "courageously revealing and adeptly covering the explosive Sandusky sex scandal involving former football coach Jerry Sandusky."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eunice Rivers Laurie</span> American nurse (1899–1986)

Eunice Verdell Rivers Laurie (1899–1986) was an African American nurse who worked in the state of Alabama. She is known for her work as one of the nurses of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study in Macon County from 1932 to 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John R. Heller Jr.</span> American physician (1905–1989)

John Roderick 'Rod' Heller, was the head in 1943–1948 of what was then called the "Venereal Disease" section of the United States Public Health Service (PHS). He then became the director of the National Cancer Institute, and then president/chief executive officer of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He is best known for having been the assistant in charge of on-site medical operations in the Tuskegee syphilis study, a longitudinal clinical examination by PHS of untreated syphilis in U.S. African-American males. Very serious questions of medical ethics have been raised about this study and those involved in it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith Lederer</span> American journalist, born 1943

Edith Lederer, also known as Edie Lederer is an American war journalist.

References

  1. "America's Dirty Little Secret" . Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  2. Heller, Jean (July 26, 1972). "Syphilis . While Jean Heller published the story, it was social worker Peter Buxtun, a former employee of the United States Public Health Service who was the whistleblower responsible for ending the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Victims in the U.S. Study Went Untreated for 40 Years". New York Times . pp. 1, 8.
  3. "No casus belli? Invent one!". Guardian News. Archived from the original on 2007-06-08. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  4. Heller, Jean (1991-01-06). "Photos don't show buildup". St. Petersburg Times.
  5. 1 2 Breed, Allen G (2022-07-25). "How an AP reporter broke the Tuskegee syphilis story". AP NEWS. Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  6. Brown, DeNeen L. (16 May 2017). "'You've got bad blood': The horror of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  7. "AP Reporter Wins Journalism Award". Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph . Vol. 102, no. 32673. Associated Press. April 26, 1973. p. 10-D. Retrieved May 2, 2020 via Newspapers.com.
  8. BREED, ALLEN G. (July 24, 2022). "How an AP reporter broke the Tuskegee syphilis story". Associated Press . Seattle Times.
  9. Bancroft, Colette (7 November 2018). "Jean Heller and Cheryl Hollon bring back engaging mystery series". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 10 November 2019.