Hope Florida was a much-touted program held up as an alternative to welfare by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and founded by his wife, Casey. Then, reporters from the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald found that it had almost no evidence of success, and the program’s charity arm, the Hope Florida Foundation, had received a mysterious $10 million donation from a state settlement and was refusing to turn over its tax records, in violation of IRS rules.
Working against state agencies that refused to publicly release records, they found that the $10 million came from a Medicaid settlement, and the charity was used to divert nearly all of it to a political committee controlled by the governor’s chief of staff. The team also painstakingly tracked billing codes across three state databases to reveal the money was part of a larger campaign to siphon more than $35 million in taxpayer dollars to political activities.
As a result of the reporting, a criminal investigation was opened, and Hope Florida, once a darling of the Governor’s agenda, lost state funding and was not enshrined into state law – a move the DeSantises had pushed for.
She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away.
This investigative series, spearheaded by reporter Shoshana Walter, uncovered the troubling practice of hospitals nationwide using unreliable drug tests on birthing patients, leading to unwarranted child welfare interventions. The investigation began when Walter heard from a mother whose positive methamphetamine test was falsely triggered by a common blood pressure medication. Further investigation revealed numerous cases, including Susan Horton, whose consumption of a poppy seed salad caused a false positive opiate test, resulting in her newborn’s removal. The reporting highlighted the high false positive rates of urine screens and the consequent threats many new mothers face from child welfare agencies.
Walter interviewed hundreds of women, examined medical records, and filed public records requests to scrutinize drug testing and reporting practices. Her findings exposed that federal authorities have long known about the unreliability of urine screens, yet no state safeguards birthing patients’ rights. This led to traumatizing experiences for many families who were wrongfully accused and separated.
The impact has been profound, with many affected women coming forward and advocacy groups mobilizing for change. The stories galvanized legislative attention, prompting U.S. lawmakers to condemn the practice and seek solutions. Civil rights organizations are leveraging the investigation to instigate legal and policy reforms across more than 20 states. Within the medical and child welfare communities, the series sparked discussions and initiated efforts to revise existing procedures, demonstrating the potential for systemic change prompted by rigorous investigative journalism.
Photo credit: Marissa Leshnov for The Marshall Project, used here courtesy of The Marshall Project
