AEGiS-BAYW: Patrick appoints Wong to Mass. Public Health Council

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Patrick appoints Wong to Mass. Public Health Council

Bay Windows - April 26, 2007
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com

Gov. Deval Patrick on April 19 named HIV specialist and AIDS Action Committee board president Michael Wong as one of his 12 new appointees to the state's Public Health Council, which serves as the policy arm of the Department of Public Health (DPH). Wong, who is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is the third openly gay person appointed to a major post under the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) by the Patrick administration. Wong's appointment follows the selection of John Auerbach as head of DPH and Jean Flatley McGuire as EOHHS assistant secretary for disability policies and programs. Auerbach will also serve on the Public Health Council.

"What's really kind of exciting about this is [Patrick] selected a diverse group of people who have a long history of experience in public health as well as primary care medicine," said Wong. He said he and the other new council members will draw on their experiences from both fields to work with Auerbach to try to restore DPH's reputation as a pioneer in the public health field.

Patrick's predecessor, Mitt Romney, came under fire from public health advocates for allegedly forcing DPH to change its policies on controversial issues to conform to his own political stances, most notably on his opposition to the new state law allowing the sale of clean syringes in pharmacies to reduce HIV transmission among IV drug users. Wong said the appointment of Public Health Council members with strong public health and primary care credentials is a signal that the new administration is depoliticizing DPH.

"It's really clear that one of John Auerbach's goals is to use evidence-based data to really bring science back into the whole relationship with smart policy, and not just the Romney administration but certainly the last several have systematically tried to dismantle the public health program in the state, and this is a clear message that that's not the way it's going to be anymore," said Wong.
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