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 group voted to require people who want a shot to be briefed on harms and benefits and tried but failed to pass a requirement for a prescription. -
RFK Jr.'s reshaped ACIP vaccine panel re-did a vote from yesterday on the MMRV vaccine and scrapped plans for another vote on the hepatitis B birth dose. -
Susan Monarez says RFK Jr. told her to commit to decisions in advance, without reviewing evidence and to dismiss vaccine experts. -
It's been a confusing and fast-changing couple of months for rules about getting a COVID shot. It should be a little easier now, after a panel of vaccine advisers met last week. -
Senators in both parties had harsh words for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a recent hearing. We discuss the health and political implications of the latest controversy surrounding the secretary and the agencies he leads. This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, health correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics. -
In a contentious hearing, Senators from both parties called on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to defend his actions as health secretary. He has made changes to vaccine access and to the CDC leadership.
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Democratic lawmakers and more than a thousand current and former HHS staff say Kennedy's actions are endangering America's health. Kennedy says he came to clean house and he's delivering. -
Here's your recap of what happened in the leadership shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week. -
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be facing a huge leadership vacuum, as Director Susan Monarez is forced out by RFK Jr. and the Trump administration.
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Susan Monarez, who has led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for under a month, is out of the job, according to the department. Her lawyers say she hasn't been told and she won't resign.
