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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The state and local health departments that rely on CDC funding say the money is not coming in on time and no one can tell them why. Some are laying off staff. -
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Prevention Lifeline included a service that provided specialized suicide prevention support by phone and text for LGBTQ+ kids. That's ending. -
Americans across the political spectrum like Medicaid and think it should get more funding, not less, according to a new poll from health research organization KFF. -
WorldPride is being celebrated in Washington, D.C., this year, with a parade being held today near the White House. But the president's policy on DEI and transgender rights is making some participants nervous.
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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is standing firm on the sweeping cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, cuts he says were suggested by Elon Musk and his DOGE team. -
On Wednesday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifys before the House Appropriations committee in the morning and the Senate HELP committee hearing in the evening.
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On Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. goes to Capitol Hill to promote and defend his massive overhaul of HHS, and President Trump's plans to change it even more. -
Trump's Justice Department asked for a lawsuit against the abortion medication mifepristone to be dismissed. It's a surprising move, given that it is similar to one the Biden administration made.
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NPR correspondents recap how funding cuts, layoffs and leadership and policy changes in the second Trump administration are affecting the Departments of Defense, State and Health and Human Services.
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The CDC teams that supported local sexual assault prevention groups were 'wiped out' in RFK Jr.'s overhaul of the Department of Health and Human Services.
