Pien Huang
Pien Huang is a health reporter on the Science desk. She was NPR's first Reflect America Fellow, working with shows, desks and podcasts to bring more diverse voices to air and online.
She's a former producer for WBUR/NPR's On Point and was a 2018 Environmental Reporting Fellow with The GroundTruth Project at WCAI in Cape Cod, covering the human impact on climate change. As a freelance audio and digital reporter, Huang's stories on the environment, arts and culture have been featured on NPR, the BBC and PRI's The World.
Huang's experiences span categories and continents. She was executive producer of Data Made to Matter, a podcast from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was also an adjunct instructor in podcasting and audio journalism at Northeastern University. She worked as a project manager for public artist Ralph Helmick to help plan and execute The Founder's Memorial in Abu Dhabi and with Stoltze Design to tell visual stories through graphic design. Huang has traveled with scientists looking for signs of environmental change in Cameroon's frogs, in Panama's plants and in the ocean water off the ice edge of Antarctica. She has a degree in environmental science and public policy from Harvard.
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Revised guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looks to minimize COVID-19's disruption of daily life while conceding that the pandemic isn't over. -
The Biden administration is allowing the shot to be given between layers of skin — a method that only requires a fifth of the full dose — in order to increase vaccinations and slow the outbreak.
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Though doctors and advocates have helped speed up access to the antiviral pills – of which the U.S. has enough to treat 1.7 million people – health providers are few and forms are still required.
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The Department of Health and Human Services will make 296,000 doses available in the coming weeks, and expects a total of 1.6 million doses to be available in the U.S. by the end of the year.
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Recent rule changes made it easier for patients to get abortion pills through the mail, using telehealth services. Now there is growing demand for these services – and new legal battles brewing.
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Some people have had trouble getting Paxlovid pills quickly, despite the administration's effort to ease access after a COVID test confirms infection.
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A federal judge's decision to strike down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's mask mandate for travelers is only the latest in a series of challenges that seek to rein in the agency.
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The Biden administration will continue to require travelers to wear masks on planes and other forms of public transport,.
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The rise of the more infectious BA.2 variant in the U.S. — plus signals in the sewage — also point to a possible uptick in cases, and have health officials on alert.
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States and health providers report they've dispensed less than half their supply from the government, raising fears that the drugs may go to waste while people who could benefit get sicker.
