Woman of interest: New FDA head Dr. Margaret Hamburg

Crossposted at 51 Percent

Announced today, March 14 2009:

Obama names FDA chief, announces new food safety panel

" Hamburg led the NYC health department from 1991 to 1997, where she established a needle-exchange program to curb the spread of HIV, set up a bio-terrorism defense program and instituted home visits to improve tuberculosis patients' adherence to their medicines. She was assistant secretary of health and human services for policy and evaluation in the Clinton administration and is now a senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that works to reduce the spread and use of nukes and chemical weapons." (source)

Comments

[JTurner]

From what you have posted and from what I have read elsewhere, this appears to be an excellent choice. One of my concerns is generic drugs manufactured outside the USA. I am concerned that the FDA does not monitor them correctly for safety. I was reading the other about the FDA just setting up a place earlier this year in Mumbai, India for a company that started manufacturing in 2007 after receiving FDA approval to do. I'm not sure how good of a job the FDA does at home either. The thought that companies use substitutes that could sicken people in the name of profit frightens me.

[kavala007]

Dr. Margaret Hamburg is an excellent choice. She is an accomplished individual with a long-standing interest in public health policy; an interest that was encouraged by her equally accomplished parents - Dr. Beatrix A. Hamburg and Dr. David A. Hamburg. That interest and dedication will follow her as head of the FDA.

While her father is often mentioned, since he was a past President of the Carnegie Foundation, I think it is important to also say something about her mother. Betty Hamburg was once head of the Children’s Unit of the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University. Currently she is at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in the field of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is recipient of the Gallagher Award for Outstanding Achievement in Adolescent Medicine, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration, and edits Behavioral and Psychosocial Issues in Diabetes. Betty and Dave have also co-authored several books together.

Dr, Margaret Hamburg will follow her family’s long standing commitment to issues that are concern to us all.

[NWLuna]

This appointment sounds truly promising. Thanks for posting the information.