by Terry Parris Jr.

Some of the best #MuckReads we read this week. Want to receive these by email?  Sign up to get this briefing delivered to your inbox every weekend.

'Bathed In blood' (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists & The Huffington Post)

Aguan Valley palm oil horror gets big coverage from @sashachavkin for @ICIJorg and @HuffingtonPost at http://t.co/STnlivlmPg

— Steven Bodzin (@guacamayan) June 11, 2015

"Since 2004, the (World Bank's International Finance Corporation) has approved more than 180 projects that may involve physical or economic displacement, according to an analysis of IFC documents by the ICIJ. In such cases, displaced families could lose their homes or other assets or suffer damage to their livelihoods.

Migrants and the new Mediterranean mafia (Newsweek)

Migrants & the Mafia http://t.co/Vxu7Cz4xJt Enjoyed working on this must read story, makes me proud to be a photo editor. #muckreads

— Shaminder Dulai (@SDulai) June 10, 2015

"...the man who is allegedly among the busiest and most sophisticated of the traffickers: an Ethiopian based in Libya named Ermias Ghermay. ... It is, the prosecutor adds, a criminal operation like no other. No name, no fixed base, a fluid membership and, most remarkably, 'totally without risk.' 'With drugs, if you lose the drugs, you lose your money,' says an anti-Mafia prosecutor. 'But in this case, you pay in advance. Even if the migrants drown, Ermias has already been paid.'"

Food flavor safety system a 'black box' (Center for Public Integrity)

Food flavor safety system a 'black box' — a new @Publici investigation #muckreads http://t.co/khaU6HS93p

— Dave Levinthal (@davelevinthal) June 10, 2015

"Most Americans know as little about the decidedly low-profile Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association and its safety assessments as they do about the more than 2,700 flavoring chemicals it has declared safe during the past five decades. Moreover, public interest groups say the FDA's recent response to a Freedom of Information Act request suggests that even the government may be blind to the science behind many of those flavors."

Use it or lose it: Across the West, exercising one's right to waste water (ProPublica)

Redefining epic:@AbrahmL year-long effort, the multipart 'Killing the Colorado' in @ProPublica http://t.co/6hkv5BKQm6 pic.twitter.com/aIWFDXBZu7

— Jay Famiglietti (@JayFamiglietti) June 10, 2015

"Why shouldn't we have a say in how those savings are used?" asked Ken Spann, one of western Colorado's significant water users, who farms thousands of acres between Crested Butte and the town of Delta downstream. "Do I have a moral and ethical obligation as a citizen of Colorado to ensure that they can continue to expand the metropolitan area toward the Kansas line? I don't think I do."

#MuckReads Local: Inside the fight to free 2 N.J. men serving life for murder (NJ Advance Media)

by David Epstein

Updated (Jun. 12, 2015):

Allegations that Alberto Salazar, the most powerful coach in U.S. track, has violated the sport’s medical and anti-doping rules intensified this week with additional runners coming forward and Mo Farah, his most-successful athlete, demanding answers.

An investigation by ProPublica and the BBC last week detailed the claims of top athletes and others who worked with Salazar at the Nike-funded Oregon Project that he experimented with the well-known doping aid testosterone — including using his son as a guinea pig to determine how much would trigger an anti-doping test; that he manipulated the therapeutic use exemption system that allows athletes to use medical treatments that are otherwise restricted; and that he gave runners prescription drugs they either didn’t need or weren’t prescribed to gain a competitive advantage.

Salazar has denied the allegations and promised a detailed response that will prove sources in the story were “knowingly making false statements.”

Since the investigation was published, three more former members of the Oregon Project have contacted ProPublica, bringing to 17 the number of athletes and Oregon Project staffers who have described to ProPublica and the BBC what they feel was inappropriate prescription drug use orchestrated by Salazar. Most declined to speak publicly because of the power Salazar and Nike hold in U.S. track. Salazar did not respond immediately to an email seeking comment.

Among the new allegations, one runner recalled being tested four times in a matter of months for thyroid function — despite a lack of any symptoms — until getting a result that, while still well within the normal range, was deemed sub-optimal. The runner recounted finally getting a prescription for the thyroid hormone drug Cytomel.

“It makes you feel revved up and good in a pretty immediate way,” the athlete said. “It feels like a performance enhancer when you’re taking it. I consider what I was doing a kind of doping.”

The story has provoked a barrage of news stories in the U.K., where track has much broader support, reporting every detail and quoting prominent athletes calling on British track star Farah to distance himself from Salazar, who coached him to two gold medals at the London Olympics.

Neither ProPublica nor the BBC reported any allegations against Farah, but he pulled out of his next race — reportedly forgoing an appearance fee of about $115,000 — citing emotional fatigue from media coverage. “You guys are killing me,” he told a media throng Saturday at a press conference in London.

Farah and Salazar’s long-time protégé, Galen Rupp, won the gold and silver respectively in the 10K at the London Olympics in 2012. Farah also won gold in the 5K, and vaulted to national icon status.

For the initial report, Steve Magness, a former Oregon Project coach and scientific advisor, gave ProPublica and the BBC a document recording Rupp’s blood tests from a period when he was in high school that noted he was “presently on prednisone and testosterone medication.” Salazar and Rupp say that Rupp has never taken testosterone or testosterone medication. Salazar said the notation was an error and referred to a nutritional supplement called Testoboost — created by a former world powerlifting champion and meant to increase testosterone naturally — that Rupp was taking “in an effort to counterbalance the negative effects of prednisone.”

At the press conference, Farah said that he has never had reason to believe Salazar has violated rules, and he will continue to train with him. But under increasing pressure from the British press, Farah promptly booked a flight to the U.S. and said he intended to meet with Salazar face-to-face to get some answers. By Friday, Farah said he was once again “upbeat.”

As part of its story last week, ProPublica and the BBC reported that Salazar had been the coach of U.S. middle-distance star Mary Decker Slaney when an anti-doping test she took in June 1996 at the Olympic trials showed an unusual testosterone profile, and ultimately led to her being suspended by the IAAF, track and field’s international governing body.

During the press conference, Farah said that Salazar had assured him that he had not been Slaney’s coach during that time. “That is a serious question and that is a question I asked before [I joined Nike’s Oregon Project],” Farah said. “And Alberto said no, he wasn’t coaching her at the time she failed a drug test.”

In his 2012 memoir, “14 Minutes: A Running Legend’s Life and Death and Life,” Salazar wrote: "I also coached my good friend Mary Slaney, the American middle-distance legend, at the end of her career.” As the Guardian reported after the press conference, Salazar was identified in numerous media accounts as Slaney’s coach the month before she tested positive, the month she tested positive, as well as in subsequent months after she tested positive.

According to Duke Law Magazine, on the day that Slaney was informed of the results of her anti-doping test, Salazar began helping to coordinate her legal challenge to a doping ban. Salazar is expected to say that Slaney’s primary coach was Bill Dellinger, and that he himself was a temporary adviser. A New York Times article dated a month before Slaney’s failed test describes Salazar as her “coach of two years.” An interview of both Salazar and Slaney in Runner’s World in June 1996 refers to Salazar as Slaney’s coach. The pair are photographed running together, and Slaney refers to Dellinger as someone “who also coaches me.”

A former Oregon Project athlete who spoke with ProPublica and the BBC this week described Salazar acting as both a physician and a pharmacy of sorts, doling out prescription drugs. Another former Oregon Project athlete said Salazar would hand out the prescription painkiller Celebrex.

Adam Goucher, a former Oregon Project runner who — along with his wife, former Oregon Project runner Kara Goucher — was among those making allegations against Salazar in the initial ProPublica and BBC stories said that Salazar “had his own little pharmacy, always … If you had something that was bothering you — ‘Here start taking some Celebrex’.” Salazar, Goucher added, is “big on medicine. He’ll give you a pill to help you fall asleep, give you a pill to help you go to the bathroom.” John Cook, who coached at the Oregon Project from 2003 to 2005, told Runner’s World that he was “not surprised” at the allegations regarding Salazar. In an interview with the BBC, he said runners “were getting [therapeutic use exemptions] left and right.” When asked by the BBC whether he witnessed the use of prednisone or testosterone, Cook replied, “I really don’t want to get into that.” Cook later clarified that he has no knowledge of testosterone use at the Oregon Project.

Kara Goucher previously told ProPublica and the BBC that Salazar discussed with her how he coached Rupp to fake symptoms of dehydration in order to obtain an IV before an important race. “They wanted the IV for whatever reason,” Goucher says, “to make Galen feel better, whatever, and they were manipulating the system to get it.” Salazar and Rupp did not respond to questions about the IV. Since that initial report, another former member of the Oregon Project told ProPublica that Salazar had described openly the symptoms that Rupp knew to fake in order to obtain a pre-race IV.

Among the prescriptions the athletes said Salazar often pushed them to obtain were various asthma medications, from albuterol inhalers to corticosteroids. To use some asthma drugs legally, World Anti-Doping Agency rules require athletes to have a documented condition and obtain a waiver. Two former Oregon Project athletes described being told by Salazar to do a hard workout, and then run up the stairs to a doctor’s office to take an asthma test. “You sprint around the track, sprint through downtown Portland, and sprint up the stairs and go do the test,” the runner said. The athlete added that Salazar often had an inhaler to give out to runners who still didn’t qualify. “If you hadn’t failed the asthma test yet,” the runner said, “he’d say, ‘Here’s an inhaler, use it until we get you tested’.” There is some evidence that albuterol inhalers acutely improve muscle performance, but no evidence that they improve aerobic endurance in non-asthmatic athletes.

Magness shared emails with ProPublica and the BBC between himself, Salazar, and a former Oregon Project athlete in which the trio discussed sending an inhaler back to the athlete, because it turned out they didn’t need it for someone else who didn’t have a prescription. In one email Salazar writes: “Steve is going to send you your inhaler, we never needed it for that Nike athlete. Thx for bringing it!”

As Magness grew more disillusioned with the Oregon Project, his relationship with Salazar became less collegial. According to another email Magness shared with ProPublica and the BBC, Salazar disagreed with an altitude-training decision Magness made. At the close of the email Salazar warned Magness: “We really want to give you a positive recommendation to wherever you apply for collegiate positions but you are going to make it very hard for [Nike director of global athletics John Capriotti], Ben and I to do so when a Nike school Athletic Director calls us to ask about you if you go this route. Think this over very carefully.” A “Nike school” typically refers to a college that has an apparel sponsorship deal with Nike.

In a third email — subject line “Celebrex” and copied to Magness — Salazar tells his wife that he needs her to send the pills overnight: “You'll have to put them spread out in a magazine and just say documents. I'll talk to you tomorrow. luv u! Alberto.” It’s unclear who the pills were for.

Magness left in 2012 by mutual agreement, but he wasn’t the only coach who had concerns with the use of prescription medications. According to former Oregon Project athletes, prominent strength and conditioning coach Vern Gambetta was hired by Salazar to train runners in early 2005. Gambetta had worked in track and field as well as with teams including the Chicago Bulls and New York Mets. According to the athletes, Gambetta was fired later that year after raising concerns about the handling of prescription drugs used by Rupp. Adam Goucher said that one day Gambetta was just gone from the team, and Salazar convened a meeting of the athletes to let them know Gambetta had had a nervous breakdown and would not be returning. Gambetta would not comment on his departure from the Oregon Project, but told ProPublica that he has never had a nervous breakdown.

Salazar has never hidden his personal experimentation with prescription drugs. A 1997 article in Sports Illustrated said that Salazar “admits he tried pharmacological remedies late in his own career, experimenting with the corticosteroid prednisone in an attempt to revive his deficient adrenal system and winning a 54-mile race in South Africa while taking the antidepressant Prozac.”

ProPublica and the BBC sent Salazar, Rupp and Farah extensive lists of questions nearly a month prior to the publication of the initial stories. In an emailed response, Salazar said he has never endorsed the use of any performance enhancing drug and has “never coached an athlete to manipulate testing procedures or undermine the rules that govern our sport.” But he did not address several of the allegations made by former athletes and staffers, including that he was having his son Alex experiment with testosterone gel to see how much would cause a positive test; that he sent Magness unidentified pills for Rupp that were taped into a hollowed-out compartment of a book; and that he took pills from Rupp’s thyroid hormone prescription to give to Kara Goucher.

Read more of our reporting on Alberto Salazar and doping allegations.

by Justin Elliott

Haitian journalists grilled an American Red Cross official Wednesday about the group’s Haiti program, but the official declined to provide any new details of how it spent nearly $500 million donated after the 2010 earthquake.

The Red Cross called a press conference, held at the Le Plaza Hotel in downtown Port-Au-Prince, in response to ProPublica and NPR’s story published last week revealing a string of Red Cross failures in Haiti.

The American Red Cross official at the press conference was repeatedly interrupted by Haitian reporters frustrated that he would not give specifics on its spending:

The official, Walker Dauphin, criticized our story for making “misleading allegations” and said that “in total, more than a hundred projects were implemented.”

But Haiti’s most prominent newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, wrote that Dauphin was merely “retracing the broad strokes of the interventions and expenses … while avoiding going into detail.” The paper ran the story on its front page under the headline, “When the Red Cross drowns the fish,” a reference to sidestepping a touchy subject.

Jean-Max Bellerive, who was prime minister of Haiti when the earthquake hit, also publicly criticized the American Red Cross, telling Le Nouvelliste that the Haitian government must “take legal actions to demand accountability.”

In the United States, Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn., has called for the House oversight committee to hold hearings on the Red Cross’ Haiti program. The story has also prompted anger and calls for investigation in a number of states. Watch this video where an activist and Georgia state senator interrupt a Red Cross spokesman: “They do not deny anything that’s been said and just direct you to some website,” said Sen. Vincent Fort.

Red Cross spokeswoman Jana Sweeney said in a statement: “The Red Cross is happy to talk with any member of Congress who has questions about our relief work in Haiti, or elsewhere.”

Annie Waldman contributed to this story.

by Jeff Gerth

With a family history of breast cancer, Marcie Jacobs decided in June 2001 that an MRI screening was her best preventive option.

As is common with MRIs, Jacobs was injected beforehand with a contrast agent, a drug that helps sharpen the resulting images. But after a few of these treatments, she began noticing some strange cognitive effects. Jacobs began missing meetings. Over the next several years she had additional MRIs. The math skills that were crucial to her job as finance manager started deteriorating, she said.

Jacobs eventually wound up on disability. She stopped worrying about cancer – and started worrying about imaging drugs.

This month, two prominent experts in the radiology community joined in the concern, calling for more research into the possible health risks after three recent studies found that gadolinium, a potentially toxic metal, wound up in the brain tissue of MRI patients who used two different contrast agents.

Editorializing in the journal “Radiology,” Dr. Emanuel Kanal at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Michael Tweedle at Ohio State University, said the studies “called into question” the “safety of at least some” of these agents. The two urged radiologists to change their prescribing habits, although not to stop using the drugs because of their proven benefits to patients. (Related video.)

Nine gadolinium-based contrast agents are sold in the United States. The two in question, Omniscan, made by GE Healthcare, and Magnevist, manufactured by Bayer HealthCare, once dominated the contrast agent market. Both GE and Bayer, in statements, said they were monitoring the issue and noted the new studies had not found any clinical impact, such as brain injury.

As ProPublica has reported, contrast agents like Omniscan had been on the market for years when, in 2006, they were linked to a crippling, sometimes fatal condition called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, or NSF. The Food and Drug Administration put a “black box” warning on the drugs the following year, saying patients with kidney impairment may be at risk of NSF because they were unable to excrete the gadolinium.

ProPublica first disclosed in 2009 that the agency ignored two of its own medical reviewers who wanted to ban Omniscan for patients with severe kidney disease. In 2010, the FDA did act, recommending that GE’s drug and two other agents shouldn’t be used in patients with impaired kidneys. The other drugs were Magnevist and Optimark, sold by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.

The new studies cited by Kanal and Tweedle have set off alarms because they show that even patients with healthy kidneys are retaining gadolinium from Omniscan and Magnevist. Estimates are that about one-third of the 20 million MRIs in the United States each year use one of the nine contrast agents.

Doctors now routinely screen MRI patients for kidney problems before injecting them with contrast agents, and scientists believe that NSF has essentially disappeared. The new studies don’t speak to the clinical effects, if any, of gadolinium in the brain. But in an interview, Kanal said the findings ought to make radiologists think twice about which agents to prescribe.

“We can use an agent today that does not retain gadolinium in the brain to the degree that those other agents do,” he said, referring to Omniscan and Magnevist. Given that the alternatives are “at least as efficacious” as the other two, he asked, “Why are some still prescribing the agents that do accumulate in the brain over the other options?”

Jacobs has no medical proof, but she’s convinced the two drugs are behind her problems.

As her symptoms worsened, Jacobs said she underwent a series of tests that found accumulated traces of gadolinium in her breast, thigh, liver and brain. Doctors were puzzled because she had no history of kidney disease and did not fit into the identified at-risk group.

She recovered old records and determined that she received Omniscan for her first 11 imagings and Magnevist before the last, in 2007. Jacobs said she eventually began a difficult, extended program to remove gadolinium from her body.

Researching on the Internet, Jacobs found a support group around the issue. Then in March, a radiology journal, Health Imaging, featured the group in an article on the new gadolinium research. That same month Jacobs started a Facebook group that is now composed of researchers as well as dozens of patients with similar gadolinium experiences and no evidence of kidney disease.

Jacobs said the new studies “confirm that the linear gadolinium-based contrasting agents such as GE’s product Omniscan and Bayer’s product Magnevist are being retained at much higher levels than radiologists and the FDA have acknowledged.”

She hopes the FDA might pull the two agents from the market.

In a statement, an FDA spokesperson said the agency is “carefully reviewing” the new studies to “better understand the potential consequences to determine what further action is needed, which may include taking steps to ensure the public is aware of these preliminary findings.”

Kanal, who has been advising the FDA and also chairs the American Board of MR Safety, said the new studies have “the entire international radiological community – and the FDA – on edge, as this is an entirely unanticipated finding.”

GE Healthcare told ProPublica that as part of its commitment to safety a new company internal task force reviewed the studies and other data and continues its work.

After finding “no signs or symptoms of potential injury to the brain” associated with Omniscan and “no evidence of cytotoxicity (cell toxicity) in published autopsy studies” the task force concluded that “continued use of Omniscan according to approved product labeling” is appropriate, GE said.

Bayer told ProPublica patient safety is its “primary concern” and said it had reached out to the authors of the original research studies “to clarify their findings,” even though “none of these studies indicate any clinical implications.” The company said it was continuing to monitor the situation.

GE and Bayer have confidentially settled hundreds of lawsuits – many involving deaths – while denying liability for their contrast agents.

In 2013, one case went to trial in Cleveland and resulted in a $5 million verdict against GE. A federal appeals court upheld the verdict last year. By then the plaintiff, who had NSF, had died.

The contours of the contrast agent market have changed in recent years. Both Magnevist, once the leading agent, and Omniscan, also a top seller, have lost market share since the FDA restrictions in 2010. GE said its market share was about 10 percent last year; Bayer declined to cite a figure.

Read more reporting on drug safety by senior reporter Jeff Gerth.

by Terry Parris Jr.

See the full Reddit chat here.

The American Red Cross raised nearly half a billion dollars following the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010 — far more than any other charity providing relief. Internally, the disaster was seen as "a spectacular fundraising opportunity."

But on the ground in Haiti, the Red Cross effort was marked by a string of failures. A ProPublica and NPR investigation uncovered confidential memos, emails from top officers, and accounts of a dozen insiders that show how the charity broke promises, squandered donations, and made dubious claims of success. For instance, the charity claimed it provided homes to more than 130,000 Haitians. They didn't. They built only six permanent homes.

So where did a half billion dollars in donations go? What relief has the Red Cross managed and how have Haitians benefited? What recourse is there for unfinished work or unanswered questions?

The discussion included community organizer and political science professor Francois Pierre-Louis, Haiti aid expert Jake Johnston, as well as ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott and NPR reporter Laura Sullivan.

New to Reddit? Click here to create an account, check out this beginner's guide from Mashable Reddit's official FAQ.

Related stories: For more, read How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes and our other Red Cross coverage.