[1] His work has prompted major public reforms, including a ban in 2005 of drug company payments to government scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Willman's investigative reports in the Los Angeles Times also led to the March 2000 safety withdrawal of Rezulin, a Type 2 Diabetes drug that grossed more than $2 billion in sales.
[9] In 2018, 20th Century Fox and film producer Steven Zaillian announced that they had bought the feature rights to The Mirage Man and were developing a movie based on it.
"[11] In 2004, Willman won the Worth Bingham Prize, awarded for "investigative reporting of stories of national significance where the public interest is ill-served."
His reporting on the investigation of the anthrax mailings won the Scripps Howard Foundation's Raymond Clapper award[12] as the year's best Washington-based coverage (2009).