2009-03-16
Following the recent announcement
of his nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of
Health and Human Services (HHS), President Barack Obama has nominated Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner, to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Dr. Hamburg will succeed Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, who stepped down
as FDA Commissioner in January and formerly served as director of the
National Cancer Institute. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the health
commissioner of Baltimore who led the Obama Administration’s transition
team for the FDA, will become Principal Deputy Commissioner at FDA.
Dr. Hamburg was appointed as acting health commissioner of New York
City in 1991 and became commissioner the following year. After stepping
down as health commissioner in 1997, she served as assistant secretary
for planning and evaluation at HHS, where she created a bioterrorism
initiative and led planning for the pandemic flu response.
Sources within the Obama Administration have indicated they hope Dr.
Hamburg’s professional background will bring the FDA "back to its core
mission of public health," and that she will be able to bridge the
divide between industry, the science community, and consumer advocates.
The Obama Administration has not yet announced nominees to head the
National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but is
expected to do so in the coming weeks.
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