New York City – An infectious-disease specialist and a longtime advocate of using government to promote healthier behavior is expected to be named New York’s health commissioner by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Monday, according to people who have been briefed on the matter.
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Dr. Thomas A. Farley of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine will replace Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the high-profile and sometimes controversial commissioner who on Friday was named by President Obama as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The speed with which a replacement was chosen underscores the importance of the post, as well as the urgency of the H1N1 flu outbreak that Dr. Farley must confront. Six schools in Queens and Brooklyn are closed this week because dozens of children have reported flulike symptoms. An inmate at Rikers Island was also hospitalized with H1N1, known as swine flu.
But the leadership transition could be seamless, given the connection between the departing and incoming commissioners.
Dr. Farley, 53, spent a year in 2007 and 2008 as a senior adviser to Dr. Frieden at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The two were also co-authors of a paper, “Public Health in New York City, 2002-2007: Confronting Epidemics of the Modern Era,” that was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology last year.
Is it in the name thomas!!??
I am tired of Bloomberg and all these know it all doctors making decision for us. This is tyranny. I want the government out of my kitchen, out of my bedroom, out of my restaurants,out of my dunkin donuts, and out of my life.
anybody know what this new guy’s position on metzitza bpeh is?
Let’s hope he’ll be as good as Frieden. Thanks to Frieden I have not smoked a cig in three years.