WASHINGTON — In tapping New York City Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, President Obama on Friday chose an official who has been on the front lines of the fight against swine flu.
Frieden, 48, helped lead New York's efforts over the last month to contain the spread of the disease, after the first concentrated outbreak in the U.S. was tied to a school in Queens.
But Frieden may be known best in public health circles as an advocate of government action in preventive medicine, which many experts say is crucial to the health system overhaul envisioned by Obama and his congressional allies.
In his 7 1/2 years leading New York's public health department, Frieden led campaigns to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, expand labeling of unhealthful ingredients in food, and develop a network of electronic health records in doctors' offices citywide.
"He has been at the forefront of dealing with cutting-edge issues . . . such as diet, smoking and lack of exercise," said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Assn. "Those are exactly the things that are driving up our health costs."
In announcing the widely anticipated selection Friday, Obama called Frieden a "leader in the fight for healthcare reform."
"Dr. Frieden is an expert in preparedness and response to health emergencies, and has been at the forefront of the fight against heart disease, cancer and obesity, [and] infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS," the president said.
Frieden will take over an agency that is working to repair its reputation after criticism that CDC science was politicized under President George W. Bush. Obama has pledged not to let politics and ideology influence policy decisions on science and medicine.
That should allow Frieden to focus the CDC on its dual missions of monitoring and controlling disease outbreaks and promoting public health, said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, a Washington nonprofit that promotes disease prevention.
"He follows the science, which is actually what CDC needs now," Levi said.
Frieden most recently garnered praise for his response to the swine flu outbreak. "He gave the mayor just the kind of credibility that an elected official needs when talking about a public health situation. . . . He was the consummate professional," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.
