As the Food and Drug Administration weighs whether to impose new pregnancy warnings on widely prescribed antidepressants, health writer Matthew Perrone delivered a rare look inside the agency’s confidential deliberations — before any official action was announced.
After a year cultivating confidential sources, Perrone established that a senior FDA official, Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, was overseeing the review of a citizen petition calling for expanded pregnancy warnings on SSRIs while simultaneously attempting to hire the petition’s author, a professional ally, into the agency. The reporting was the first to lay out the key players, timeline and internal dynamics behind the review.
The story also highlighted how the process appeared to depart from long-standing agency norms, including questions about recusals and standard review procedures. By detailing who was driving the effort and how the review was unfolding, Perrone brought transparency to a high-stakes regulatory process that affects millions of patients.
Judges praised Perrone’s ability to penetrate an opaque federal agency during a period of upheaval, delivering high-impact accountability journalism that shed light on consequential drug safety deliberations.
Related articles
