Joe Neel
Joe Neel is NPR's deputy senior supervising editor and a correspondent on the Science Desk.
As a leader of NPR's award-winning health and science team, Neel directs coverage of breaking news in health and science, ranging from disease outbreaks and advances in medical research to debates over health reform and public health.
Joe also plays a key role in overseeing the Science Desk's award-winning enterprise reporting. Among his current projects and responsibilities, Neel supervises the Monday "Your Health" segment on Morning Edition. He also directs several ongoing editorial partnerships. One, a partnership with Kaiser Health News and public radio member stations, focuses on health care in the United States. Another is a polling project on health issues with the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Neel has played a key role in expanding the network's coverage of global health and development issues. He is currently focused on domestic health issues, including cutting-edge biomedical research and developments in the health industry, such as the Affordable Care Act.
In 2008, he launched NPR's "Your Health" podcast and helped launch and grow "Shots," NPR's health blog, in 2010.
In addition to his responsibilities at NPR's Science Desk, Neel also regularly serves as newsroom manager, overseeing the network's overall news coverage.
During his tenure as editor, NPR's health reporters and correspondents have won numerous awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the National Academy of Sciences Communication Award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society for Professional Journalists, the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting on Congress, the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Journalism Prize, and the Association of Health Care Journalism award. Neel was awarded the prestigious Kaiser Family Foundation Media Fellowship in 2007.
Neel started filing stories about medicine and health as a freelancer for NPR in 1994 and joined the staff two years later.
He earned bachelor degrees from Washington University in St. Louis in both biology and German literature and language. He also studied biology at the Universitaet Tuebingen in Germany.
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The investment is a response to an ongoing national shortage and follows a $2 billion investment in September to supply rapid tests to community health centers, food banks and schools. -
The leaders of two federal health agencies are telling White House COVID-19 advisers that there is not enough data right now to make a blanket recommendation on boosters. -
Johnson & Johnson said that when it gave study participants a second jab after six months, their antibody levels were nine times higher than they were 28 days after a first dose of the COVID vaccine. -
The CDC is officially recommending a third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for people with weakened immune systems. It follows the FDA authorization a day earlier. -
The cases have been seen mostly in teens and young adults between 12 and 39 years old. No deaths have been associated with this side effect of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. -
Masks are optional for vaccinated kids, and other recommended restrictions have been softened, making for a more relaxed camping experience for children this summer. -
In advance of a COVID-19 vaccine being available, a group of independent medical advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weighed Friday who should get the vaccine first and how. -
A recent NPR poll finds minority communities have been disproportionately burdened by wage gaps and chronic illnesses during the pandemic. Watch a expert discussion at 12 noon ET Wed. Sept. 30.
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Emily Miller was central in defending the FDA commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, after he falsely said that blood plasma could lower the death rate from COVID-19 by more than a third. -
CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield says the agency will double the current number of positions to aid local health departments in quashing new outbreaks. They will focus on testing and contact tracing.
