ProPublica and the Helena Oncologist Story

I finally donated to ProPublica yesterday.

I've been meaning to for a while, since they seem to be one of the few media organizations that's unafraid to keep doing what needs to be done in the face of what's coming, and what has come before. (They're not the only one – Mother Jones, especially, comes to mind — but they cover a wider landscape, I'd say.) I can't believe I didn't get on the stick after their Supreme Court corruption stories; too complacent, I guess.

The story that made me donate was this one: Eat What You Kill, by J. David McSwane. It's long, but worth reading every word. It's about medical care in America, but (for once) not about insurance companies denying coverage.

No, this is about an oncologist named Thomas Weiner in Helena, Montana, who set up a fiefdom for himself. Every regulatory and medical guard rail that should have contained him failed. People died and were damaged by his actions. The hospital where he worked for almost 25 years has both finally worked to hold him to account and to cover up its own complicity. The doctor who did the most to stop him is still under the most legal threat. 

It's an excellent piece reporting and writing, which makes me realize how infrequently I see something like that "these days" — especially about somewhere in the middle of the country like Helena.

ProPublica's mission is "to expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing."

They're going to be busy, if the Trump administration doesn't put them all in jail.