Yasmeen Abutaleb

Abutaleb graduated from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland in 2010, where she first learned about journalism on their newspaper, the Black and White.

Abutaleb received a B.S. in microbiology and a B.A. in journalism from University of Maryland in 2014. She served as the editor-in-chief of the school's newspaper, The Diamondback from 2012-2013.[3]

Abutaleb started her career covering health care for Reuters, focusing on the Affordable Care Act, drug pricing and federal health programs.[4]

In 2016, she was one of three lead reporters on a five-part investigative series detailing the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.[5][6]

She joined The Washington Post in 2019 as a national reporter covering health policy. She focuses on the Department of Health and Human Services and health care in politics.[7]

Throughout her career, Abutaleb has reported on the opioid crisis,[8] changes to Medicaid[9] and how politics influence health policies.[10]

She has appeared on Washington Week,[11] C-SPAN[12] and MSNBC.[13][14]

In June 2021,[15] Abutaleb and Damian Paletta co-authored “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” a book detailing the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in America.[16][17]

The book most notably reveals that President Trump considered displacing infected passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship at Guantánamo Bay,[18] and that the severity of President Trump's coronavirus infection was far worse than he originally let on.[19][20][21][22]