Brian Mann
Brian Mann is NPR's first national addiction correspondent. He also covers breaking news in the U.S. and around the world.
Mann began covering drug policy and the opioid crisis as part of a partnership between NPR and North Country Public Radio in New York. After joining NPR full time in 2020, Mann was one of the first national journalists to track the deadly spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, reporting from California and Washington state to West Virginia.
After losing his father and stepbrother to substance abuse, Mann's reporting breaks down the stigma surrounding addiction and creates a factual basis for the ongoing national discussion.
Mann has also served on NPR teams covering the Beijing Winter Olympics and the war in Ukraine.
During a career in public radio that began in the 1980s, Mann has won numerous regional and national Edward R. Murrow awards. He is author of a 2006 book about small town politics called Welcome to the Homeland, described by The Atlantic as "one of the best books to date on the putative-red-blue divide."
Mann grew up in Alaska and is now based in New York's Adirondack Mountains. His audio postcards, broadcast on NPR, describe his backcountry trips into wild places around the world. [Copyright 2025 NPR]
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The Biden administration points to fentanyl as the major culprit for the increase in deaths. Officials unveiled a new one-year strategy to reduce the number of fatalities from drug overdoses. -
The CDC says hospitals saw a lot more emergency cases involving drug overdoses, as well as mental health crises and suicide attempts. Many emergency departments weren't ready.
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Black Americans with addiction face "pervasive and continuing systemic racism" and often struggle to gain access to treatments that prevent fatal overdoses.
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The state opened a mass vaccination site at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Friday and is working with Black pastors to overcome worries about vaccine safety.
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A report issued by Attorney General Letitia James concluded the New York State Department of Health numbers fell short by "as much as 50%."
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New data from the CDC show more than 19,000 Americans died from drug overdoses during the first three months of 2020 with the country on pace to set a grim new record.
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"The first question is, is the vaccine safe? Frankly, I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion," Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference.
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Americans are drinking far more during the COVID-19 pandemic. A beer in the evening can feel like a taste of normal life, but health experts worry about alcohol's deadly side effects. -
"During the pandemic, basically everything is pointed in the wrong direction," says one federal health official, who calls the convergence of COVID-19 and America's addiction crisis "a nightmare." -
Thousands of lawsuits that ground to a halt because of COVID-19 are moving forward again as local, state and federal courts reopen around the U.S.
