Results tagged “healthcommissionerfrieden”

Word is that infectious disease specialist Dr. Thomas Farley is set to become the city's new health commissioner. In recent years, Farley was a senior adviser to Dr. Thomas Frieden, who has left his post in order to head up the Center for Disease Control. The mayor is expected to make the announcement tomorrow. On Friday, Bloomberg said, "I didn't want this city, particularly at a time when you have H1N1 on people's minds, to go without a health commissioner." Currently six city schools are closed due to swine flu. Farley, the current chairman of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, co-authored a paper with Frieden titled “Public Health in New York City, 2002-2007: Confronting Epidemics of the Modern Era." Former health official told the Times, “Tom Farley is a really top-notch epidemiologist and a really, really well-respected public health official. He has a lot of interest in addressing the issues that are causing people to have poor health.”

President Obama is expected to announce today that he's appointing Dr. Thomas Frieden, NYC's health commissioner, as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Frieden, who will take office next month, is respected in the public health field for focusing on threats that affect the largest numbers of people—during the Bush years, for example, he found himself at odds with an administration that was funneling billions into bioterrorism initiatives while he was focused on stopping cigarette smoking in NYC. The Times offers a telling anecdote that underscores his agenda:

The local swine flu total has climbed to 62 and more notably than that, New York has now seen its first case in a patient who has not traveled to Mexico nor has any connection with the epicenter of the local outbreak, St. Francis Prep. There are also 17 more probable cases not yet confirmed, two of which also have no connection to either major swine flu As usual, the latest update on the virus comes with a familiar reassurance from Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden that this is no cause for alarm. He said, "Although H1N1 is likely spreading in the community, it does not appear to have caused more severe illness than seasonal flu so far."

This afternoon, city officials announced that many more school children may have the swine flu, which has been confirmed in 45 NYC residents (stats from CDC) so far. Beyond St. Francis Prep in Queens where the first cases were reported, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said that "hundreds of students were ill with symptoms which most likely were swine flu." Children at P.S. 177, a school for autistic children, were being tested (and the school is closed) as were ones at a Catholic school Ascension. From CityRoom:

P.S. 177 is at 56-37 188th Street in Fresh Meadows, in eastern Queens; Ascension is at 220 West 108th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Several St. Francis students had siblings at P.S. 177, but it was not immediately clear how or whether the Manhattan school was linked to the St. Francis flu outbreak.

A UFT spokeswoman said of the situation at P.S. 177, "Many of our children don't speak [because they are autistic. So if they're not feeling well, teachers are always watching them for cues of lethargy. It makes it a little bit more difficult.... Our nurse was on rollerskates yesterday." Also, a Columbia Teachers College student reportedly may have swine flu.