Within 24 hours of the news breaking on Sunday evening, December 6, that President-elect Joe Biden will be naming Rochelle Walensky, M.D., M.P.H. to be the next Director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), replacing Robert R. Redfield, M.D., the current CDC Director, praise erupted from across the healthcare industry. Dr. Wilensky is currently chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School; according to Mass General’s website profile of her, Dr. Walensky obtained her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and her M.P.H. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and did her residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and her fellowship in nephrology at Mass General.
The Arlington, Va.-based Infectious Diseases Society of America and its HIV Medicine Association were quick praise the choice. On Monday, Dec. 7, the IDSA and HIVMA published the following statement, under the signatures of Barbara D. Alexander, M.D., IDSA’s president, and Rajesh T. Gandhi, M.D., HIVMA’s chair: “The Infectious Diseases Society of America and its HIV Medicine Association welcome President-elect Biden’s selection of Dr. Rochelle Walensky to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Dr. Walensky, the president-elect has chosen a gifted infectious diseases physician and leader who has demonstrated a deep commitment to the application of public health and science in leading evidence-based, equitable and cost-effective responses to some of the greatest public health challenges our nation faces. Her contributions to research, policy and practice in understanding, responding to and controlling pandemic threats that include HIV, tuberculosis and now COVID-19 have informed global and domestic efforts that are critical to protecting Americans and advancing global health. IDSA and HIVMA, which benefit from her contributions as an HIVMA Board member, congratulate the incoming administration on its choice and look forward to working with Dr. Walensky.”
"Biden has chosen one of the most respected infectious disease docs in the world. She has a long history working on HIV and has, in the past year, become a tour de force in addressing COVID," wrote Jen Kates, Ph.D., senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the nonprofit nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, on Twitter. “She’ll take the helm of CDC at perhaps its most critical moment.”
Meanwhile, The Boston Globe’s Felice J. Freyer and John Hilliard wrote on Monday that, “On Sunday night, news of Walensky’s upcoming job leading the nation’s premier health agency was lauded by some of her medical colleagues, including Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Medical Center. Barocas considers Walensky a mentor since he served a fellowship at Mass. General from 2015 to 2018. Walensky, he said, “looks at health through the lens of not just the absence of disease but also the promotion of well-being.” “It will be nice to have an actual scientist as the head of the CDC,” Barocas added, “and somebody who has literally committed her entire career to health -- to the health of the community.” Freyer and Hilliard also wrote that “Julia Marcus, Ph.D. an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, said she ‘exclaimed out loud’ when she saw the headline about Walensky, with whom she has co-authored journal articles. ‘What this country needs right now is strong clinical and public health leadership at the CDC,’ Marcus said. ‘She will be able to restore the CDC as the nation’s preeminent public health agency.’” And they quoted Marcus as saying that “[A]nyone who wants to know what to expect from Walensky should watch a video of her testimony before Congress on HIV prevention last year.” “She was fierce and brilliant and a true advocate for HIV prevention in the US in a way I found inspiring,” Marcus told the Globe reporters.
They also referenced a statement published by George Q. Daley, M.D., the dean of Harvard Medical School, who said in a statement he was thrilled that Walensky will lead the CDC. ”Dr. Walensky’s frontline clinical expertise and deep research background in the field of infectious diseases renders her supremely qualified to helm the agency, to steer our country past the grim contagion that is COVID-19 and to build our nation’s preparedness for future pandemics,” Dr. Daley said in that statement.
Gregg Gonsalves, Ph.D., assistant professor in the epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health and an associate professor of law at the Yale Law School, tweeted on Monday that “What is happening right now is crucial. @JoeBden is assembling a ‘dream team,’ of people to fight #COVID19. They are at the top of their professions, brilliant, deeply compassionate, of the highest integrity with the expertise to get us to safety and back to a better world. @vivek_murthy, @RWalensky, @ERIC_Yale (Marcella Nunez-Smith), and Anthony Fauci. @JoeBiden has picked the best, he did not hand out appointments as gifts or political favors on #COVID19.”
And Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., the director of the University of Alabama School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, and who has focused on prevention of HIV infection using biomedical intervention, tweeted, “Wow. @Rwalensky @IDSAInfo @HIVMA has been a consistent, fearless physician-scientist & advocate for all not only during #COVID but for years in #HIV 3AIDS work. Brilliant choice! @UAB_ID
As Brian Burnell wrote for NBC10 Boston, the NBC affiliate in that city, “Dr. Rochelle Walensky began her career at the height of the AIDS crisis. She rose to the director of Massachusetts General Hospital's infectious disease division, and she will be in charge of the CDC in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.” And he quoted Paul Sax, M.D., director of infectious diseases at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as stating that "Dr. Walensky trained here in infectious diseases. I've known her for years. She's very good at communicating about what that data means. She's also quite collaborative, and I just couldn't think of a better choice."
And Vin Gupta, M.D., an affiliate assistant professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington, and a pulmonary and critical care physician, tweeted, “Congratulations Dr. Walensky @RWalensky. Thrilled by your selection. This is the type of health appointment that gives us all confidence that frontline clinicians with clear covid expertise through lived experience will be steering us ahead.”
