Deadlier drugs, younger addiction and no help in sight
Government and medical system failures have created a void in addiction treatment for young Washingtonians during a particularly deadly moment in the opioid crisis.
Read the series at The Seattle Times
How insurance denials delay life-saving eating disorder treatment
Health insurance companies across Washington take advantage of weak government oversight and keep patients sick with eating disorders from their clinicians’ recommended care.
Read the series at The Seattle Times
Housed at the Hospital: Stories of a youth mental health crisis
Hundreds, if not thousands, of kids across Washington have been “boarded” inside emergency departments in recent years for days or weeks because there’s nowhere else for them to go.
Read the series at The Seattle Times
How aripiprazole’s promise for treating autism fell short
Aripiprazole, marketed as Abilify, is widely thought to be safer than risperidone, the only other drug approved for use in autistic children. A decade’s worth of data suggests that is not true.
Read the story at The Transmitter
An unusual disease cluster in Colombia
Researchers are studying a village full of people with fragile X syndrome to understand how it causes autism and other cognitive and health problems
Read the story at Science
When police officers mistake autism for suspicious behavior
When law enforcement’s encounters with people on the spectrum go wrong.
Read the story at The Atlantic
At Seattle hospital, staff increasingly restraining kids in crisis
As the youth mental health crisis has escalated, staff in the psychiatric unit at Seattle Children’s are using restraints three times as often as they were in 2021.
Read the story at The Seattle Times
Where did King County’s mental health beds go?
As King County’s population swelled by nearly 50% since a promising mental health facility first opened, the number of beds where people with mental illnesses can live or recover has halved.
Read the story at The Seattle Times
The small Washington town where mental health care starts on the streets
A small town’s social worker is on a daily crusade to preserve the humanity of those jettisoned by society: people who churn in and out of homelessness, mental health and substance use facilities, emergency rooms and jails.
Read the story at The Seattle Times
Are Hawk Ridge’s Storied Goshawk Migration Booms Over?
Every 10 years for more than a century, thousands of Northern Goshawks migrate south from Canada through Minnesota. But in recent decades, the counts during irruption years have plummeted. And no one's sure why.
Read the story at Audubon
Where the shark is the bellweather
Off Long Island, scientists work to understand the apex predator and its ecosystem
Read the story at The Wall Street Journal
In search of a ghost
The saltmarsh sparrow’s survival hinges on the ocean, but rising waters and shrinking habitat are causing populations to plummet.
Read the story at Audubon