Hard-hitting head of CDC

Last Friday, President Obama chose a firebrand to head the US Centers for Disease Control.

Thomas Frieden is known for pushing through a ban on smoking in public spaces in New York City, where he has served as health commissioner since 2002. He refused to take that position until the mayor promised to back his plan. After that he took aim at artificial trans fats in restaurants, instituting a ban that inspired other communities to do the same.

He’s likely to put the CDC’s focus back on tobacco, the nation’s number one killer. But he’s also got the creds on infectious disease—having bolstered needle exchange and condom distribution programs in New York, along with supporting a controversial program to increase HIV testing. In the early 1990’s, he ran the city’s tuberculosis program, putting the kibosh on an illness that had taken hold in the city’s vulnerable populations.

Not all of his ideas have been conventional, and some are unpopular. To get an idea of how he gets things done, see this profile by our former news editor, Apoorva Mandavilli.