Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2009. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - March 11, 2009
Sarah Rubenstein
It looks like Margaret "Peggy" Hamburg is on the verge of being the next FDA commissioner.
Her name has been thrown around for a while, and the WSJ reports this morning the Obama administration has her as the leading candidate for the top post at FDA, with Baltimore health commissioner Joshua Sharfstein as a deputy commissioner.
Hamburg, a former health commissioner in New York City, has worked heavily on issues around infectious disease and bioterrorism. In New York, she instituted a needle-exchange program to help prevent the spread of HIV. She also set up a program, later mimicked by health departments around the world, in which health workers went to tuberculosis patients' homes to help them manage their drug regimens.
Hamburg, a Harvard Med School grad, was an assistant secretary of health and human services during the Clinton administration and now works at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which tries to cut the threat from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Take a look at more on her background here, and find more color in the WSJ story. Among other things, she opposed a "morality oath" demanded by the Board of Education in 1992 while the city was debating abstinence-focused sex education in schools.
To try to get away from the touchy issue of whether the FDA commissioner is pro- or anti-industry, the White House wants to position the top dog there as somebody who will focus the agency on its core mission of public health, the WSJ explains.
For a taste of some of what the administration is contending with, take a look at this post from December about the efforts of a coalition of patient and research groups. The group's advocacy vis-a-vis the commissioner post was interpreted by some as anti-Sharfstein. He has been a critic of drug makers.
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