Sacha Pfeiffer joined WBUR in 2008 after more than a decade as a reporter for the Boston Globe, where she was on the Spotlight investigative team that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its stories on sex abuse in the Catholic church. At WBUR, she is an on-air reporter covering health, science, medicine and the environment, and she has received an Edward R. Murrow Award and an Associated Press Award for broadcast reporting.
After graduating cum laude from Boston University with a double major in English and history, Pfeiffer got her start in journalism at the Dedham Times, a weekly newspaper south of Boston. She moved to the Globe in 1995, first as a general assignment reporter, then covering state courts, then doing investigative work.
During her four years on the Globe's Spotlight Team, she produced series on financial abuses by private foundations, George W. Bush's military service, shoddy home construction, and the Catholic church's cover-up of clergy sex abuse. The latter series also won a George Polk Award for National Reporting, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, and Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, among other honors.
From 2004-2005, Pfeiffer was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University, where she studied at Stanford Law School. When she returned to the Globe, she created a legal affairs beat and also covered nonprofits and philanthropy. Pfeiffer is a co-author of Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church and is an adjunct faculty member at Boston University's College of Communication.
Email: pfeiffer@wbur.org
BOSTON — A new Harvard study finds that computerized medical records don’t save money or make hospitals more efficient, despite claims that health information technology could generate huge financial returns.
BOSTON — State health officials say the flu is at a historic high, but some doctors say it’s peaking or slowing. To make sense of those conflicting claims, here are some swine flu questions and answers.
Swine flu is now so widespread in Massachusetts that flu activity is the highest it’s ever been in recorded state history.
BOSTON — A new report shows a significant drop in the number of public high schools in Massachusetts that teach sex education, which has health officials worried about the possibility of more teenagers engaging in risky sexual behavior.
BOSTON — A new Harvard study finds that people admitted to the hospital for trauma are more likely to die from their injuries if they don’t have health insurance than if they do.
BOSTON — The surgery training program at Massachusetts General Hospital has been put on probation by a national accrediting organization because its surgeons-in-training were working too many hours.
BOSTON — A professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School has made a rap music video to help children avoid swine flu.
Good news on the swine flu front: some local hospitals say emergency room visits by people with flu-like symptoms seem to have plateaued, indicating that the H1N1 virus may have reached its peak in Boston.
A new study out of the Boston University School of Medicine finds that when the body is repeatedly deprived of foods rich in fat and sugar, that triggers a chemical reaction in the brain similar to drug addiction.
At least one big local health insurance company is reporting a troublesome trend related to the H1N1 swine flu outbreak: The overuse of antibiotics to treat the illness.
A new national poll by the Harvard School of Public Health finds that the majority of adults who’ve tried to get the H1N1 swine flu vaccine for their children or themselves have been unable to do so
Boston University researchers who studied how many alcohol ads young people see on the MBTA on a typical day are calling for a ban on alcohol advertising on the T.
What to Do If Your Child Seems To Be Developing Complications From The Flu
Children’s Hospital has opened an overflow site to help manage the number of patients coming to its emergency room with flu-like symptoms. But most of those children are just being told to go home, drink fluids and get lots of rest.
BOSTON — It’s happening later than doctors expected, but the emergency department at Children’s Hospital Boston is starting to see an increase in suspected cases of the H1N1 swine flu.
SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Some high-risk patients can’t find the H1N1 vaccine even though some seemingly healthier patients can. That has many people wondering if there’s any rhyme or reason to how the vaccine is being divvied up.
BOSTON — Just as the traditional winter flu season gets closer, Massachusetts is experiencing shortages and delays of vaccines for both the H1N1 swine flu and the seasonal flu.
BOSTON — Another high-level Patrick administration official is leaving, this time to become president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
BOSTON — Massachusetts communities with large poor and minority populations have substantially higher rates of uninsured adults than the state average, according to a new state report.
BOSTON — The state’s “safety net” hospitals say Massachusetts health care reform threatens to bankrupt them. So they’re turning to the courts for help.
