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Margaret
Hamburg
Commissioner
U.S. Food
and Drug Administration
Margaret Hamburg, one of the
youngest people ever elected
to the Institute of Medicine
(IoM, an affiliate of the
National Academy of
Sciences), is a highly
regarded expert in community
health and bio-defense,
including preparedness for
nuclear, biological, and
chemical threats. As health
commissioner for New York
City from 1991 to 1997, she
developed innovative
programs for controlling the
spread of tuberculosis and
AIDS.
Margaret Hamburg is the
daughter of Beatrix and
David Hamburg, both
distinguished physicians and
early role models for her
career in medicine. Her
mother was the first
African-American woman to
attend Vassar College and to
earn a degree from the Yale
University School of
Medicine (which had
previously excluded black
students). Her Jewish father
and grandmother taught her
to value education and
family and to fight
discrimination and
oppression.
When
she was inducted into the
prestigious Institute of
Medicine in 1994, she had
followed the path of her
parents, both IoM members
since the 1970s. "There was
a sense of real fun that the
father-mother-daughter
constellation had been
formed," said Hamburg.
Hamburg
is a graduate of Radcliffe
College. She earned her M.D.
from Harvard Medical School,
and completed her training
at the New York
Hospital/Cornell University
Medical Center. She did
research in neuroscience at
Rockefeller University in
New York from 1985 to1986
and in neuropharmacology
(the study of the action of
drugs on the nervous system)
at the National Institute of
Mental Health in Bethesda,
Maryland.
From
1986 to 1988, she served in
the U.S. Office of Disease
Prevention and Health
Promotion, and from 1989 to
1990 she was assistant
director of the National
Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases at NIH,
where her work focused on
AIDS research.
In
1990, she left the NIH to
serve as deputy health
commissioner for New York
City. Within a year, she was
promoted to health
commissioner. It was a
difficult, complex, and
demanding job, with severe
budget constraints and many
responsibilities, ranging
from clinical services to
environmental health. She
strove to improve health
services for women and
children, instituted
needle-exchange programs to
combat HIV infection, made
inroads into curbing the
spread of tuberculosis, and
initiated the nation's first
public-health bio-terrorism
defense program. During her
term as health commissioner,
she also held academic
positions at Columbia
University School of Public
Health and Cornell
University Medical College,
both in New York City.
While
commissioner Dr. Hamburg's
innovative treatment plan
for tuberculosis (TB) became
a model for health
departments around the
world. In the 1990s, TB was
the leading infectious
killer of youths and adults
and had become resistant to
standard drugs. To be
effective, new drugs
required patients to take
pills every day for up to
two years, but failure to
complete the full course of
treatment allowed the
bacteria to mutate into
drug-resistant strains.
Hamburg sent healthcare
workers to patients' homes
to help manage their drug
regimen, and between 1992
and 1997, the TB rate for
New York City fell by 46
percent, and by 86 percent
for the most resistant
strains.
In
1993, Dr. Hamburg was
President Clinton's first
choice for the newly created
post of federal AIDS
coordinator. Pregnant with
her first child at that
time, Hamburg declined,
putting motherhood first.
President Clinton selected
her in 1997 to be assistant
secretary for policy and
evaluation at the U.S.
Department of Health and
Human Services. This time
she accepted.
Since
2001, she has been vice
president for biological
programs at the Nuclear
Threat Initiative, a
foundation dedicated to
reducing the threat to
public safety from nuclear,
chemical, and biological
weapons. She is a leading
advocate for changes in the
nation's public health
policies and infrastructure,
from local health
departments to the highest
levels of government, to
meet the challenges
presented by modern
bioterrorism. She is a
distinguished senior fellow
with the Center for
Strategic and International
Studies.
Dr.
Hamburg is married to Peter
Fitzhugh Brown, an
artificial intelligence
expert, and the couple have
two children. Interestingly,
she was the first New York
City health commissioner to
give birth while in office,
so her children's birth
certificates bear her name
in two places: as their
mother and as health
commissioner.
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