05.15.09 - New CDC Director Frieden Will Apply Sound Public Health Principles to HIV Prevention
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation enthusiastically supports President Barack Obama’s choice of Dr. Thomas R. Frieden to be the next director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was announced today.
Dr. Frieden, who has served as New York City Commissioner of Health since 2002, will begin at the Atlanta-based agency in June. He will have a pivotal role in the U.S. response to HIV and AIDS and in meeting the goals of the National AIDS Strategy, including HIV prevention targeted to African Americans, other communities of color, gay men of all races, and other groups at elevated risk.
“Tom Frieden’s influence on HIV prevention has been enormous,” said Mark Cloutier, San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO. “He understands that HIV prevention depends on sound public health principles, the embrace of scientific evidence—not political ideology—and methods of disease control used to successfully combat infectious diseases around the world.”
In a 2005 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, Dr. Frieden acknowledged likely political fallout from standard techniques like diagnosing infection, interrupting transmission, and population monitoring. “But the human and economic costs of failing to adopt a comprehensive public health approach are much higher,” he wrote. In New York, Frieden is credited with eliminating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and with distributing millions of condoms to help slow the spread of HIV.
The CDC, responsible for health promotion, disease prevention, injury, disability and preparation for new health threats, has been a familiar partner and occasional adversary to the community response to HIV under the previous administration. In the epidemic’s earliest years, the CDC was accused of neglecting the social circumstances of gay men and other communities first affected by HIV. More recently, the agency removed information about HIV prevention from its websites, including details about the effectiveness of condoms to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.
At the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the selection of Dr. Frieden adds to the hope of health care reform inspired by the new administration, its support of the National AIDS Strategy, and the President’s nomination of Dr. Margaret Hamburg to lead the Food and Drug Administration.
“A CDC that recognizes the challenges faced by AIDS service organizations will be a monumental ally,” Cloutier added. “As the Foundation embarks on a plan to reduce new HIV infections by 50 percent by 2015, we look forward to a productive collaboration with Tom Frieden and to learning from his forward-looking approach to disease control and elimination in San Francisco and elsewhere.”
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation provides leadership to prevent new HIV infections. Linking community experience with science, the Foundation develops ground-breaking prevention programs and bold policy initiatives to promote health and create sustainable progress against HIV. Established in 1982, the Foundation refuses to accept that HIV transmission is inevitable.
Page last updated:
5/15/2009