Reporter’s Notebook: How Ozempic, Medical Debt and Transplants Shaped 2024
Anissa Durham poses for a portrait at Balboa Park in San Diego, CA on June 26, 2024. Credit: Adriana Heldiz
By Anissa Durham
It’s that time of year again.
As my third year on the health data reporting beat comes to a close, I’m reflecting on the work I’ve done and the voices I’ve been honored to include in my stories. I’ll say it again: no community takes its health more seriously than the Black community.
If I’ve learned anything in these three years, it’s that the U.S. healthcare system is deeply flawed –– many would say broken. Unfortunately, Black folks are more likely to encounter problems like the system dismissing their care and caregivers dismissing their pain.
But in spite of all that brokenness, there are Black men and women who are working to make our health care experiences better. Those people are advocating and fighting for us to live healthier lives. They believe in our need for physical and mental healing.
The way we continue to rise, the way we continue to demand more and better, the way we continue to heal is exactly why I love this job.
It may seem dramatic, but I truly believe this is my life’s work. There is no other beat I’d rather cover and there is no other community I’d be as honored to center in my stories.
As I express my gratitude for another year at Word In Black, I’d like to share a few samples of my most significant projects of the year and fill you in on what to expect from me in 2025.
Most Impactful Project: Ozempic Tales
This project was special in many ways. It was the first time Word In Black has collaborated with STAT news, a Boston-based healthcare news site. It was the first time I reported on Ozempic and all of the inequities that Black adults face to use this medication.
Although we knew generally what the project would look like, it took some time to nail down the specific angle. Once we did, though, it turned out to be one of my favorite stories of the year.
I had the pleasure of interviewing more than a dozen Black Americans across the country about their experiences with weight loss, body image, GLP-1 medications, Type 2 diabetes –– and what it was like to obtain one of the hottest, most expensive drugs on the pharmaceutical market.
I try to approach all of my stories thoughtfully, with a listening ear; I’m human before I’m a reporter. It was devastating, therefore, to hear how so many people, young and old, have struggled over a lifetime with their weight and sense of self.
When the interview got too emotional, I found myself telling sources it’s OK to take a break or to cut the conversation. It was heavy and sometimes painful, but most of all, necessary for them to speak their truth. I wouldn’t be the reporter I am today without the brave voices of people who have been so forthcoming about their stories.
An excerpt from Brandon Stewart, Dallas, 34
“The graduation photo is from 2008 and I was 18 years old. I graduated from Houston’s High School for Performing and Visual Arts’ instrumental music program,” Stewart says. Right image: Interview subjects were asked to write notes to their younger selves.
COURTESY BRANDON STEWART
I don’t fit the idea of what people think of genderqueer because being dark skinned and being bigger is often coded as masculine. It’s tough to see how fatphobia is interlaced in everything, but that’s how white supremacy works.
Around 24 to 25, my concept of self-love began to shift. I began to learn myself and see that I’m a bad bitch. I realized I’ve always been beautiful, and a joy. I learned and unpacked the lies that were told to me about my blackness, fatness, and about my body. I realized a lot of the pain I was carrying about my body didn’t belong to me.
Most Complicated Project: Life or Debt
This series explored how Big Pharma and healthcare companies target and exploit Black Americans living with Type 1 diabetes by restricting access to lifesaving medications like insulin. Despite capping insulin prices at $35 per monthly prescription, the Inflation Reduction Act had a loophole: the price reduction only applies to Medicare Part D enrollees. That means only Americans who are 65 or older, younger people with end stage renal disease and patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis paid the lower price.
Insulin users who don’t fit in those categories still pay full price for insulin, or whatever price their health insurance sets for them.
Close up of teenage girl injecting insulin in her abdomen in the morning, feeling her blood sugar is high. Diabetic girl using insulin pen at home, in the bedroom. Concept of daily life with chronic illness, diabetes for teenagers. Credit: Halfpoint Images via Getty Images.
This series was difficult. Many times, I ended up on the phone with my sister, a pharmacy technician, trying to understand the roles of insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers, and drug rebates in keeping insulin prices so high. It was a challenge to grasp just how intricate and complicated these systems are and communicate that to readers in a succinct and clear way.
But I was up for the challenge.
Along with strengthening my reporting skills, this series validated the experiences of Black Americans dealing with the everyday reality of living with a chronic disease diagnosis and fighting insurance companies just for the right to stay alive.
An excerpt from ‘It’s Cartel-like Behavior,’ Big Pharma
Jonathan Watanabe, director of the Center for Data-Driven Drugs, Research, and Policy at the University of California, Irvine, and Clinical Pharmacist, says it’s an American phenomenon for patients to experience medical bankruptcy.
“How you were born should not decide the care you receive,” Watanabe says. “If you’ve got care that people can’t access, it has no benefit.”
Upcoming Project
On our website you may have seen a survey or two about organ donation and transplantation. I’ve had the story idea about Black patients awaiting organ donations for more than three years, and now it’s finally going to happen in 2025.
That’s because I was awarded the 2025 U.S. Health System Reporting Fellowship by the Association of Health Care Journalists, a prize that will enable me to work on the idea.
I’ll be working on a series about how medical mistrust and misinformation has impacted Black Americans who are dying on the organ transplant list.
I’ll be looking at how the exploitation of Black bodies in medical research has played a role in the lack of healthy Black people voluntarily registering as organ donors. Along with examining how that restricts genetic matches for Black patients, I’ll debunk common myths about organ donation and transplantation.
Be on the lookout for any social media callouts or potential surveys we may share as part of this project. If you have any tips or questions, please email me at anissa.durham@wordinblack.com.