This week’s cover story on weight-loss drugs underscored USA TODAY Network’s focus on seeking to drive positive societal change by spotlighting your experiences.
Firsthand accounts from both Dr. Jamie Mullally, a top obesity medicine expert in Westchester County, and Terese Genecco, a 59-year-old New Yorker seeing life-altering results from taking a weight-loss drug, stemmed from a request we made for readers’ stories as part of a USA TODAY Network article in September.
Genecco was among nearly a dozen people who responded to the request. Her story, including her raising of concerns about health insurers denying weight-loss drug prescriptions, led a reporter to interview Mullally, who has treated scores of Hudson Valley patients and emphasized the importance of winning the decade-long fight to curb the obesity epidemic.
Taken together, the voices of Mullally and Genecco allowed USA TODAY Network to ask tough questions of a top health plan in New York while also laying bare the real-world stakes of legislation being debated now in Albany.
This kind of journalism has been central to our long-standing and ongoing coverage of critical issues facing New Yorkers.
One example involved Lia-Marie Henry, a Hudson Valley woman whose tale of law enforcement intimidation sprung from a request for readers’ stories included in the USA TODAY Network-Syracuse University investigation of police-involved crashes in New York.
Another audience response came from Sandi Ortiz, who was fighting to hold Yonkers Police Department accountable for $3,000 in damage to her car from a collision with a police SUV.
State lawmakers have already proposed new legislation seeking to increase police driver training in the wake of that investigation. We will keep pushing those in power for answers as the future of new-generation weight-loss drugs unfolds.
Put simply, your decision to entrust us with your stories is what fuels our most impactful journalism.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY’s weight-loss drug inequality focus of USA TODAY network report