Charles Ornstein
Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities.
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Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities. From 2008 to 2017, he was a senior reporter covering health care and the pharmaceutical industry. He then worked as a senior editor and deputy managing editor.
Prior to joining ProPublica, he was a member of the metro investigative projects team at the Los Angeles Times. In 2004, he and Tracy Weber were lead authors on a series on Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a troubled hospital in South Los Angeles. The articles won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service.
In 2009, he and Weber worked on a series of stories that detailed serious failures in oversight by the California Board of Registered Nursing and nursing boards around the country. The work was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Projects edited or co-edited by Ornstein have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, the Scripps Howard Impact Award, the IRE Award, the Online Journalism Award and other major journalism honors.
He previously worked at the Dallas Morning News, where he covered health care on the business desk and worked in the Washington bureau. Ornstein is a past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and an adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University. Ornstein is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dollars for Docs Payments Approach $300 Million
ProPublica has added another $13 million in payments to our Dollars for Docs database of drug-company spending on doctors and other health professionals. That brings the total to nearly $295 million.
Drug Companies Retain Tight Control of Physicians’ Presentations
Drug companies keep strict control of materials doctors use in paid presentations about pharmaceuticals. The companies say this ensures that speakers comply with U.S. FDA regulations.
Med Schools Flunk at Keeping Faculty Off Pharma Speaking Circuit
Top U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals are failing to adequately enforce policies that prohibit or restrict faculty physicians from being paid by drug companies to give promotional speeches about their products.
In Minnesota, Drug Company Reports of Payments to Doctors Arrive Riddled With Mistakes
A new federal plan will require drug and medical device companies to report all payments to U.S. physicians in 2013. The danger? As Minnesota discovered, some information submitted may not be accurate.
Drug Firms Say They'll Take Closer Look at the Docs They Pay
Seven drug companies paid $7.1 million to 292 doctors who faced disciplinary action or other regulatory sanctions, ProPublica found. Several companies say they may take steps to tighten screening procedures for physicians who are paid as speakers or for other activities promoting prescription drugs.
Dollars for Docs: Who’s On Pharma’s Top-Paid List?
A review of the highest-earning physicians in ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database offers insight into why some medical professionals are drawn to the lucrative sideline of public speaking to promote favored drugs.
How the Drug Companies Say They Screen Their Speaker Docs
The seven drug companies that have disclosed their payments to doctors say they screen their "speakers" but many do not check state medical disciplinary databases.
Lawsuits Say Pharma Illegally Paid Doctors to Push Their Drugs
Pharma companies are being accused in lawsuits of paying doctors to push off-label uses of their drugs or financially rewarding doctors for prescribing their brand-name medications.
Docs on Pharma Payroll Have Blemished Records, Limited Credentials
Hundreds of doctors paid by pharmaceutical companies to promote their drugs have been accused of professional misconduct, were disciplined by state boards or lacked credentials as researchers or specialists, ProPublica has found. We compiled data from seven companies, covering $257.8 million in payouts since 2009 for speaking, consulting and other duties