Trump to Nominate Stephen Hahn, Cancer Researcher, to Head F.D.A.

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Dr. Sharpless, by contrast, had donated to Democrats, including $500 to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2012 and $250 in 2008.

Dr. Hahn is seen as a skilled leader, with a laid-back, friendly approach that has helped to speed his ascendancy at the institutions where he has worked. More recently, he was a finalist for chief medical officer at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, but the job was ultimately given to the person who had been serving in the acting role.

In 2017, Dr. Hahn stepped in to run M.D. Anderson after Dr. DePinho announced his resignation. At the time, the cancer center was operating at a financial loss, and a series of scandals involving Dr. DePinho — including his ties to for-profit companies — had taken a toll on morale, as did the layoffs of about 800 people.

“Steve was asked to right the ship, and he did,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, the former chief medical and scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, who is now a professor of oncology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University.

By the end of the year, M.D. Anderson had returned to financial stability.

“He has the ability to stand up, take responsibility, understand the problem and fix the problem so it won’t happen again, and help everybody through that,” said Dr. Theodore DeWeese, the vice dean for clinical affairs at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Nevertheless, Dr. Hahn has weathered his own set of controversies. In 2009, he testified before a Congressional panel to explain why a doctor under his supervision had improperly implanted dozens of radiation seeds into patients at a veteran’s hospital in Philadelphia, sometimes into the wrong organs.

“In the radiation oncology world, it was a huge, huge deal and a real tragic thing for the patients,” said Dr. Eric Horwitz, the chair of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who knew Dr. Hahn when he worked at the University of Pennsylvania. Although Dr. Hahn had assumed his role after the harmful treatments had begun, they continued under his watch. “Mistakes were made, he acknowledged them, and he didn’t blame other people,” Dr. Horwitz said.



Source : Nytimes