
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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A deal on the table in Congress would help deliver on a long-time promise: to make prescription drugs more affordable. It includes a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare patients.
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The Inflation Reduction Act aims to put caps on drug price increases and out of pocket spending. It also includes a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate price some drugs.
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President Biden is experiencing mild symptoms after testing positive for COVID-19.
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More than half of uninsured kids qualify for free coverage but don't know it. The government has released $49 million to get the word out, especially as the end of the COVID health emergency looms.
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In a departure from earlier Supreme Court decisions on abortion, Justice Alito's abortion opinion barely mentions medicine. This creates a perilous new legal reality for doctors, legal analysts say.
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Physicians must treat in line with patients' wishes and standards of care. Some medical ethicists say that abortion bans will force doctors to disregard these obligations in order to follow the law.
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NPR talks to Claire Hannan, who has helped navigate vaccine rollouts in all 50 states, about some of the challenges involved in quickly getting shots out to millions of young kids.
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After the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, we asked for your questions about the future of abortion care in the U.S. Here's what our health experts said.
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The Supreme Court will soon rule on a case that could end the nationwide right to abortion. You've sent us your questions about what will happen if 'Roe v. Wade' is overturned. Some experts answer.
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According to official numbers, more than 100,000 people are testing positive for COVID-19 each day in the U.S., more than double the rate a month ago.