Biden nominates a disease-fighting celebrity as beloved as Dr. Fauci to run the CDC: 'She's the full package'

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Biden nominates a disease-fighting celebrity as beloved as Dr. Fauci to run the CDC: 'She's the full package'
Dr. Rochelle Walensky is President-elect Biden's pick to head up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Massachusetts General Hospital
  • President-elect Biden has plucked Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, to be next in line to run the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Walensky's colleagues call her "the full package:" both a sharp scientist, and a good communicator.
  • During the pandemic, she has worked to coordinate equitable access to COVID-19 treatments.
  • She is an advocate for more investments in how vaccines are distributed, and public confidence-building.
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The Biden-Harris transition team announced a slew of top health position picks this week, including a new director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

"I'm honored to be called to lead the brilliant team at the CDC," Walensky said Monday in a tweet. "We are ready to combat this virus with science and facts."

Walensky has not served in the federal government before. Instead, she's been a doctor and public health expert working on the front lines of HIV/AIDS response, as chief of infectious diseases at Massachussetts General Hospital.

This year, she's taken the lead in her state to help both better understand and better distribute potential treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

News of her new job set off widespread cheers and shouts for joy across the public health world, where she already has a significant fanbase.

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CDC directors don't need to go through Senate confirmation hearings, making it near-certain that Dr. Walensky will indeed take the helm at the country's home for infectious disease prevention in January, unseating Dr. Robert Redfield.

A Fauci for the CDC?

Colleagues who've known her for years say she's "the full package," when it comes to good leadership.

"She's one of those people who's so effective at both engaging with the research, caring for patients, and then communicating those two pieces of her work," Dr. Ingrid Katz, a professor at Harvard and an infectious disease doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital (which is part of the same hospital system as Massachussetts General), said of Walensky.

"It's rare to find that full package, you know, you can find people who are exceptional researchers, but maybe aren't able to communicate that to the general public, or maybe great communicators, but don't necessarily have the background or expertise in the data," Katz said, likening Walensky to the infectious disease expert who's become something of a public health superhero during the pandemic: Dr. Anthony Fauci.

"She has a lot of Tony in her," Katz said. "Tony's real gift in so many of these arenas is his ability to take complex information and convey it in clear and concise messaging."

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Walensky's been an advocate for cheaper, better HIV treatment

Walensky has been an advocate for more cost-effective, accessible HIV/AIDS treatments, fairer drug pricing, as well as more gender and racial equity in medicine for decades.

Last year, she co-authored an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Where were the women?" slamming both drug makers, and US regulators, from leaving "those who have receptive vaginal sex" out of the equation when testing and approving a new prophylactic HIV treatment.

And last month, she co-authored a study in the journal Health Affairs, which calls on public health officials to invest more money in vaccine production and distribution and "redouble efforts to promote public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines."

"This is the moment where as a nation, we have to confront the lack of equity and how this pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color, poorer communities, and I think that is exactly what's going to be on her mind when she comes in," Katz said.

This year, she has probed whether potential COVID-19 treatments really work

During the pandemic, Walensky's work has shifted to focus more on the novel coronavirus, as she's taken on the task of coordinating with other hospitals across Massachussetts, to find more effective ways to care for COVID-19 patients.

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She has co-authored opinion pieces for both the New York Times and the Washington Post about how to fairly and effectively distribute Remdesivir, one potential treatment for early-stage COVID-19, to the patients who might benefit from it most. It's still not clear the medicine does all that much to help coronavirus patients, though, and she has stressed more rigorous research on it is needed, in case it turns out to be another hydroxychloroquine.

"She has cared for these patients on the front lines," Katz said. "You can't really replace that."

Someone who 'will really support the people at the CDC'

Biden nominates a disease-fighting celebrity as beloved as Dr. Fauci to run the CDC: 'She's the full package'
Inside the containment laboratory for high-level biohazard in the CDC, circa 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Scientists with protection suits studied Ebola virus infected cells.Matthew Naythons/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

The CDC has, in the past, sat in the driver's seat during disease crises, both across the US, and around the world, (think: swine flu, anthrax, SARS, Zika, and Ebola). But throughout the coronavirus crisis, the agency has been sidelined and silenced, as the US has spiraled into an unparalleled and explosive phase of the coronavirus outbreak, with no end in sight until vaccines arrive.

"At this time in particular, when you have such fantastic people who work at the CDC, but they've really been undermined by this administration, you need someone at the helm who is going to have a clear vision, who is going to be a really effective communicator, and who will really support the people at the CDC to do the necessary data-driven work," Katz said.

"She's a very strong and competent leader, and we've seen that over and over again here in Boston in multiple areas that she has led. I think in many ways it will be the antithesis of the leadership that has been in place under this administration in this last year."

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