Obama selecting N.Y. official to lead CDC
WASHINGTON - President Obama will announce today he has chosen Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the New York City health commissioner, as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials said yesterday.
Frieden, a 48-year-old infectious disease specialist, has cut a high and sometimes contentious profile in his seven years as New York's top health official under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He led the crusade to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, pushed to make HIV testing a routine part of medical exams, and defended a program that passes about 35 million condoms a year.
At the CDC, he would inherit a host of immediate and long-term problems, including a looming decision about whether and how to produce a swine-flu vaccine.
Health experts say the agency must resolve serious morale and organizational issues even as the administration struggles to overhaul the nation's healthcare system.
"I think the administration selected Tom Frieden because he can take public health to a new place," said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit public health advocacy organization. "He's a transformational leader."
Frieden is expected to take office next month. His appointment does not require Senate confirmation.
Frieden has long been expected to be Obama's choice, and although he is widely admired in the public health community, some CDC veterans began lobbying in recent weeks on behalf of the agency's acting director, Dr. Richard E. Besser.
Besser has been the government's chief scientific spokesman during the swine flu epidemic, winning praise for his confident performance. He will return to his post as head of the agency's coordinating office for terrorism preparedness and emergency response.
