Tamar Stieber

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Tamar Stieber is an American journalist who won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Specialized Reporting for showing the link between the dietary supplement L-tryptophan and a rare blood disorder. Her reporting helped prompt the Food and Drug Administration to recall L-tryptophan nationwide. As a rookie at the Albuquerque Journal, she reported that three New Mexico doctors connected their patients’ rare blood problems to the supplement. Although many officials were skeptical at first, her stories led to the discovery of more than 300 cases in 38 states and Washington, D.C., and the FDA issued a nationwide recall.

She was the first New Mexico reporter to win a Pulitzer. After the prize, she says she faced unequal treatment at work—limited salary increases and fewer opportunities for advancement—and she filed a gender bias complaint with the EEOC and then sued the Albuquerque Journal. The Journal argued that some of her stories were mistaken and that she used company resources to sue. In May 1992, her pay was about $8,500 less than three male investigative reporters who had not won Pulitzers. She resigned in October 1994. A federal jury ruled for the Journal in April 1995, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld that decision on October 23, 1997.