Jean Heller is an American writer and former investigative journalist. She is best known for publishing the news of theTuskegee syphilis study in 1972,^[1][2] and reporting the inaccurate claims by theUnited States of anIraqi buildup on theSaudi Arabian border during theGulf War in 1990.^[3][4] She has reported for theSt. Petersburg Times,Newsday and theAssociated Press.

Jean Heller graduated from TheOhio State University School of Journalism in 1964.

In 1972, Associated Press colleagueEdith Lederer provided Heller with evidence she had received fromwhistleblowerPeter Buxtun detailing that, for four decades, people enrolled in theTuskegee study had been deliberately denied treatment forsyphilis.^[5] Years later, Heller called the story "one of the grossest violations of human rights I can imagine".^[6] Her article exposing the unethical study was published in theWashington Star on July 25, 1972, and it became front-page news in theNew York Times the following day. The exposé earned Heller theRobert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, theRaymond Clapper Memorial Award, and theGeorge Polk Award.^[7][8]

Heller also writes theDeuce Mora series of novels, which feature a fictional Chicago newspaper columnist.^[9]

Heller lives inSouthport, North Carolina.^[10][5] She is a pilot, which led her to publish two books about fictional aviation disasters.^[11]

• American women journalists
• Living people
• 21st-century American women

• CS1 maint: publisher location
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Year of birth missing (living people)