According to The Wall Street Journal:
The New York Police Department found Mr. Rago dead in his apartment at 7:40 p.m., according to a police official. The authorities went to check on Mr. Rago after he didn’t show up for work on Thursday. Paul Gigot, the editor of the Journal’s editorial page, had alerted the paper’s security officials, who then contacted the police.
Mr. Rago was found with no obvious signs of trauma and emergency responders declared him dead at the scene, the police said. The cause of death was being determined by the medical examiner on Friday.
Here's more via the Journal:
He did his homework, becoming one of the most well-sourced people around on health care, with sources throughout Washington and among academics on the left and right, Mr. Gigot said in an interview on Friday.
“He was the kind of person you liked to have a beer with — I know that’s a cliché, but it’s actually true,” Mr. Gigot said.
Rago started at the paper as an intern in 2005 after graduating from Dartmouth that year.
Remembering the career of an extraordinary colleague,
— Larry Kudlow (@larry_kudlow) July 22, 2017
Joseph Rago https://t.co/LGBPrVZBN8 via @@WSJOpinion
Updated 9/12
Reported by Patch today:
"The cause of death is sarcoidosis involving lungs, heart, spleen, hilar and mediastinal lymph nodes," Julie Bolcer, director of communications for the Medical Examiner, said in an email. "The manner of death is natural."
Sarcoidosis, which causes severe inflammation of the organs, is still relatively mysterious to doctors.
According to the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research: "Despite the best efforts of researchers for more than a century working to better understand the complexities of this disease, sarcoidosis remains difficult to diagnose with limited therapies. Many patients suffer for years before arriving at the correct diagnosis or discovering the best treatment plan."
