Selena Simmons-Duffin
Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on health policy for NPR.
She has worked at NPR for ten years as a show editor and producer, with one stopover at WAMU in 2017 as part of a staff exchange. For four months, she reported local Washington, DC, health stories, including a secretive maternity ward closure and a gesundheit machine.
Before coming to All Things Considered in 2016, Simmons-Duffin spent six years on Morning Edition working shifts at all hours and directing the show. She also drove the full length of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 for the "Borderland" series.
She won a Gracie Award in 2015 for creating a video called "Talking While Female," and a 2014 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for producing a series on why you should love your microbes.
Simmons-Duffin attended Stanford University, where she majored in English. She took time off from college to do HIV/AIDS-related work in East Africa. She started out in radio at Stanford's radio station, KZSU, and went on to study documentary radio at the Salt Institute, before coming to NPR as an intern in 2009.
She lives in Washington, DC, with her spouse and kids.
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The Food and Drug Administration says Abbott's BinaxNOW test and Quidel's QuickVue can be sold without a prescription. -
If we want life to get back to normal in the U.S., public health experts say we can't just rely on COVID-19 vaccines. Other tools like contact tracing and care coordination are crucial too.
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The process of trying to get vaccinated can be confusing. A new platform from the federal government and private sector partners makes it easier to find a provider where you live.
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An independent federal advisory committee to the CDC recommends the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people over 16. But state health leaders say distribution and funding challenges remain.
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Though the Trump administration is trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in court, it's vowed that people with health problems will still be able to get insured. Here's why that could be tricky.
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"We've got to take a deep breath," says one health official about the rapid timeline pushed by the CDC. "It is very clear that we need to lean forward to prepare to deliver the vaccine."
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Trump has reversed Obama-era protections that prohibit discrimination in health care based on gender identity. Critics warn the rule could harm a vulnerable group — LGBTQ people — during a pandemic.
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The deadline for enrolling in health plans on HealthCare.gov was supposed to be Sunday. But the federal agency in charge reopened the sign-up period, after an outcry over technical glitches.
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Two regulations announced Friday take aim at health care prices. One, to affect patients by 2021, addresses hospital rates. The second, a proposal, would require more upfront clarity from insurers.
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The U.S. judge found that the Trump administration's rule violates the law in "numerous, fundamental, and far-reaching" ways. Critics said the rule prioritized providers over patients.
