The congressionally appointed panel that’s investigating the financial crisis issued its first subpoena Wednesday – to a company we’ve been examining because of its role in the financial crisis.

Moody’s Corp., one of the world’s largest credit rating agencies, has come under fire for awarding rosy ratings to mortgage investments at the center of the financial meltdown. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, the other top rating agencies, also issued inflated grades to investments that turned out to be toxic.    Read more »

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--> Reports Link System Malfunctions to Injuries, Deaths

One day in March 2009, hospital workers misread small print on a computer screen, causing them to dispense 10 times the prescribed dose of a drug. Result: The patient has a heart attack.

Another time, a computer fails to alert doctors and nurses when a patient is moved from intensive care to their ward. Left unattended during the night, the patient suffers seizures for hours.    Read more »

Related Content Related Links, Files:  RELATED STORY: Amid Electronic Records Surge, a Lack of Policing DATABASE: Explore Health IT 'Adverse Event' Reports Submitted to the FDA BEHIND THE DATA: Help Us Investigate KEY DOCUMENT: Health Affairs Study Cites 'Mixed Results' With CPOE Performance KEY DOCUMENT: Study on CPOE Links to Medication Errors Expanded Statement from Cerner Corp. Patient Safety Primer on CPOE Devices Oregon Health & Science University CPOE Research Related Ask:  Behind the Data: Help Us Investigate Flaws With Health Information Technology

--> Government Offers Incentives to Buy Electronic Devices It Doesn't Track for Safety

As federal officials encourage the rapid expansion of electronic medical records to help doctors improve care and cut costs, they lack a reliable and systematic method for tracking the safety of these products, agency data and audits show.

Instead, the Food and Drug Administration depends on a spotty warning system that can take a year to flag serious computer malfunctions and other software glitches. When it does learn about incidents that might cause harm, the FDA has failed to correct the problems, the data and audits show.    Read more »

Related Content Related Links, Files:  RELATED STORY: As Doctors Go Digital, Signs of Harm Emerge BEHIND THE DATA: Help Us Investigate KEY DOCUMENT: Inspector General Report KEY DOCUMENT: Draft Proposal by Federal Panel on Health IT Policy Expanded Statement from GE Healthcare Related Ask:  Behind the Data: Help Us Investigate Flaws With Health Information Technology

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Below are excerpts from GE’s statement to the Investigative Fund regarding adverse event reports submitted to the FDA about its health information technology devices.

GE Healthcare is dedicated to providing safe and effective products.     Read more »

Related Content Related Links, Files:  RELATED STORY: As Doctors Go Digital, Signs of Harm Emerge RELATED STORY: Amid Electronic Records Surge, a Lack of Policing DATABASE: Explore Health IT 'Adverse Event' Reports Submitted to the FDA

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Below is Cerner’s statement to the Investigative Fund regarding adverse event reports submitted to the FDA about its health information technology devices.    Read more »

Related Content Related Links, Files:  RELATED STORY: As Doctors Go Digital, Signs of Harm Emerge RELATED STORY: Amid Electronic Records Surge, a Lack of Policing DATABASE: Explore Health IT 'Adverse Event' Reports Submitted to the FDA

--> Government Overseers, All From Wall Street, Resist Disclosure

After taxpayers rescued American International Group from the brink of collapse, the U.S. government moved to protect its investment by appointing directors and special trustees to oversee the company.

Now the government’s appointees, all hailing from Wall Street or the Federal Reserve, are allowing AIG to withhold key records generated during the company's decline. The documents could decode the murky circumstances leading to the second largest bailout of the financial crisis.    Read more »

--> Pentagon Discovers Overpayments to Contractor, Potential for Waste

The private contractor that trains the Afghan police force, a U.S. military program long criticized for wasting money, has failed to document millions of dollars in expenses, according to a leading defense audit agency.    Read more »

--> Pentagon to Re-bid and Keep Spending Billions

A troubled multi-billion contract that has failed to create a reliable national police force in Afghanistan—key to the drawdown of U.S. troops—will be extended again.

During a Senate homeland security subcommittee hearing Thursday, a Pentagon official laid out plans for a new “full and open competition” for police training that likely could take until the end of the year. The new bidding could hamper an already delayed training process.    Read more »

If you ever wondered who might be overseeing the government’s private contractors in warzones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s now an answer: Other contractors.

Even as the U.S. increasingly relies on contractors overseas to help build roads and schools, the federal government is routinely allowing them to police each other.

The Government Accountability Office is trying to make sense of the practice – or at least see if there is any real method for hiring oversight contractors. A partial GAO database of about 200 contracts shows the extent of the practice.    Read more »

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It’s not every day that a reporter gets to cover a big, headline-generating congressional hearing that involves facts and themes he helped to disclose as a result of his own determined digging. For months, David Heath has doggedly pursued stories for us and The Seattle Times on the largest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual.    Read more »

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--> Yet They Failed to Act, Senate Investigation Finds

One of the central unanswered questions of the financial crisis is whether bank executives knew fraud was rampant within their mortgage loans.

A Senate committee tomorrow will present evidence that in the case of Washington Mutual Bank, the largest bank failure in history, executives knew about the fraud - and in some cases failed to take much corrective action. By doing nothing, the bank could report higher profits and employees could earn higher bonuses.    Read more »

A candlelight vigil held in Oak Hill, W. Va., on Wednesday April/AP Photo by Jon C. Hancock    Read more »

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Few things are more essential to the success of America’s efforts in Afghanistan than the creation of a national police force. And nothing is more essential to the creation of that force as finding experienced people to train the recruits.

But a top training commander at NATO said Thursday that a deep shortage of police trainers troubles the mission.    Read more »

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Republican Sens. Bob Corker (top) and Judd Gregg met with an S&P lobbyist to discuss legislation that would enforce tougher legal standards on credit raters.    Read more »

By Kevin Liptak

The lights went out today at a hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, but it may take more than an electrician to fix this group's power problems.    Read more »

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Investigative Reporters and Editors recently announced its 2009 award recipients. Our story about a herbicide called atrazine was a finalist. Atrazine is the second-most-widely-used herbicide in America; farmers saturate their crops with it. As our reporting shows, it may cause a significant risk to humans, animals and the environment.     Read more »

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Remember that Wall Street bonus tax that a couple Senate Democrats unsuccessfully floated this month? It’s not dead yet.

As we recently reported, the bonus tax initially failed amid opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and hesitation among moderate Democrats and key New York politicians, including Sen. Charles Schumer.     Read more »

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Even as President Obama's health care overhaul gets moving, loopholes threaten to undermine the legislation.

Despite a flurry of news reports that the health care package bans a controversial practice where insurers retroactively cancel the health coverage of patients, the law has not changed. Yes, federal law already outlaws rescission, except in cases where insurers say patients have committed fraud.

But insurers generally are not required to prove that the fraud was committed knowingly, and can revoke coverage retroactively -- saving large sums -- at little risk to themselves. Absent any new disclosure requirements or industry standards governing rescission criteria, insurers will ostensibly continue to be able to exploit the loophole to their advantage.    Read more »

Additional Authors:  Amanda Zamora -->

--> Family's Struggle Highlights Retroactive Decisions by Insurers, Employers

With her heart set on a career as a chef, Heather Galeotti enrolled in a San Francisco culinary school. One winter night, her life took a near-fatal turn when she was hit by a car. The 22-year-old lay in a coma for nearly six months.

Galeotti’s shaken family told the hospital that she was covered by her father's health care plan with Kaiser Permanente. The hospital confirmed her status with Kaiser and proceeded to treat her. Medical bills piled up to more than $4 million.    Read more »

--> Panel Seeks Centralized Data on Hazards Related to Digital Systems

Despite mounting concern over safety risks posed by digital medical records systems, government officials are years away from starting to track hazards stemming from use of the devices.

A federal advisory panel wants to create the first national database of medical software malfunctions and problems as a part of the Obama administration’s drive to spend billions of dollars in economic stimulus money helping doctors and hospitals adopt the technology.     Read more »