InvestigateWest

I’ve been in the back of ambulances before, but never for work. So my recent ride-along in the front seat of one of Medic One’s fleet of response vehicles was a first for me. It was an unusual opportunity. Medics are understandably hesitant to import bystanders to a scene. The last time they did it, I was told, was when CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer reported on Medic One in 1974, noting for posterity that Seattle was the “best place in the country if you’re having a heart attack.”

So I was grateful that the Seattle Fire Department granted my request to accompany their medics into the field to see the opioid drug epidemic from their perspective. I’d asked after learning, during the course of reporting about Washington’s prescription epidemic, that medics respond to up to 50 overdose calls a month in King County and about half of those calls involve prescription painkillers.

My ride-along took months to arrange. The result is this piece for KUOW, about efforts underway to supply more bystanders with Narcan – an antidote that can wake someone up from an overdose and save his life. Medics carry Narcan, and citizens, by law, are allowed to. But the drug is not widely available. If more people did carry it, public health experts say there would likely be fewer calls to Medic One about overdoses.

Lt. Craig Aman, a 22-year-veteran paramedic, met me at the Battalion 3 headquarters, a warren of small offices across the street from Harborview Medical Center’s emergency room. 

The Senate Finance Committee has launched an inquiry into financial ties between producers of prescription painkillers and the doctors and patient advocacy groups that help to set guidelines for drug use, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The manufacturers of OxyContin, Percocet, and Duragesic are among the targets of the inquiry, which is led by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). The Pain and Policy Studies Group at the University of Wisconsin and the American Pain Foundation, which closed last week, according to its website, also received letters asking for information about ties to drug makers.

The investigation comes amidst the increasing number of prescription drug overdoses that InvestigateWest reported on in January.

ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs project, which makes information about drug company payments to doctors publicly accessible, has led to a flurry of stories in the media, and the Seattle Times recently won a Pulitzer for its investigation into methadone and pain control.

More coverage of the Senate inquiry: Reuters, Pharmalot, ProPublica.

Congratulations to KCTS 9's Katie Campbell, who on Friday got an Emmy nomination in the video journalist category from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Science.

Katie was nominated for her work on "Where There's Smoke," a seven-minute Earthfix documentary produced in partnership with InvestigateWest on the health risks associated with wood-burning stoves. In Tacoma and many towns across the Northwest in the winter, wood smoke leads to sooty, toxic air pollution that leaves some residents – particularly asthmatics, kids and the elderly – gasping for breath.

Along with fireplaces and other wood-burning heaters, old wood stoves produce about half the microscopic particles of soot that typically hang in the air in the Tacoma area when winter air stagnates. By comparison, industry, already heavily regulated, emits just one-tenth of the Tacoma-area soot pollution.

In Washington, the state Ecology Department estimates that sooty pollution from all sources contributes to 1,100 deaths and $190 million in health costs annually.

Watch Katie's video after the jump.

A month ago, we released a set of stories on prescription drug abuse in Washington state, the result of a six-month investigation by Carol Smith into the roots of the epidemic, the cost to human life, and the possible solutions. Since then, readers and viewers have shared their reactions, and with Whitney Houston's death, the dangers of prescription drugs hit the mainstream news cycle.

The Storify round-up and reactions begin below the fold.

When you think of pollution, you might picture an industrial center like Camden, N.J., or Jersey City. But new research shows that when it comes to a potent class of cancer-causing toxic chemicals, many American parking lots are a lot worse.

New studies paint an increasingly alarming picture – particularly for young children – about how these chemicals are being spread across big swaths of American cities and suburbs by what may seem an unlikely source – a type of asphalt sealer. These sealants are derived from an industrial waste, coal tar.

Four new studies announced this week further implicate coal tar-based asphalt sealants as likely health risks.  The creosote-like material typically is sprayed onto parking lots and driveways in an effort to preserve the asphalt. It also gives the pavement a dark black coloring that many people find attractive.

Coal tar is a byproduct of the steelmaking industry. In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared that it would not be classified as a hazardous waste, even though it met the characteristics of one, because it could be recycled for uses including coating asphalt. That meant steel mills didn’t have to pay for costly landfilling or incineration of the waste.

 Only in recent years have scientists discovered the ill effects of this practice.

Coal tar sealants are used most heavily in the eastern United States, but have been used in all 50 states until Washington State banned the products last year as a result of reporting by InvestigateWest. More than a dozen local governments, including Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, also have banned the coal tar sealants in favor of the other major type of sealant, which is asphalt-based.