Richard E. Besser
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Richard E. Besser (born August 29, 1959) is an American doctor and executive who has served as president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since April 2017. Besser served as the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is a federal public health agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The agency focuses on minimizing human health risks associated with exposure to haza ...
(ATSDR) from January to June 2009. He was ABC News' former chief health and medical editor.


Life and career

Besser grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and graduated from
Princeton High School Princeton High School may refer to: *Princeton High School (Illinois), Princeton, Illinois *Princeton Community High School, Princeton, Indiana *Princeton High School (Minnesota), Princeton, Minnesota *Princeton Junior-Senior High School, Princeton ...
in 1977. He is of Jewish descent. His brother, Mitch, is married to singer
Annie Lennox Ann Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the New wave music, new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician D ...
. Besser received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Williams College and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1986. After graduation, Besser completed a
residency Residency may refer to: * Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place ** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship * Residency (medicine), a stage of postgrad ...
and a chief residency in
pediatrics Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until th ...
at
Johns Hopkins University Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
. In 1991, Besser joined the
Epidemic Intelligence Service The Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) is a program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The modern EIS is a two-year, hands-on post-doctoral training program in epidemiology, with a focus on field work. History Creation ...
which is under the supervision of the CDC. He was sent to Boston to investigate a minor outbreak of
E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...
there. Officials were unhappy at the length and cost of the investigation, which included collecting deer feces from apple orchards, but Besser eventually found the source of the outbreak, which was apple cider. Besser also worked as a health reporter for a local television station in San Diego, California during the 1990s. On January 22, 2009, Besser was named acting director of the CDC and ATSDR. Before the new
Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
named a permanent director for both agencies, in April 2009, an outbreak of swine flu in North America swept the headlines. Besser began to hold daily press conferences where he explained the United States government's reaction to the outbreak, which originated in Mexico, but had since spread to over 20 countries, with the United States the most affected by the virus's spread. Besser's handling of his press conferences drew praise from prominent American medical professionals such as
Dr. Mehmet Oz Mehmet Cengiz Öz (; born June 11, 1960), known professionally as Dr. Oz (), is an Turkish American former professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University, television presenter, author and former political candidate. The son of Tur ...
and Dr. David Satcher. In October 2014,
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...
disinvited Besser from a speaking engagement because he had recently returned from a trip to
Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
. His scheduled talk was to be “Pandemics, Public Health, and Political Change: The Critical Importance of Communication", a discussion of the 2009 flu pandemic "when fear was outracing the disease". Besser wrote at the time, "You cannot catch Ebola in a lecture hall hearing about the power of communication during a public health crisis. I expect universities to fight this kind of fear, not feed it. What we need to do is communicate, as strongly and as often as we can, what the real risks are and aren’t." In Besser's role at ''ABC News'', he provided medical analysis and reports for all ''ABC News'' programs and platforms. His weekly health chats on social media reached millions. In April 2015, Besser delivered the Provost's Lecture at Oregon State University. In April 2017, Besser replaced
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey Risa J. Lavizzo-Mourey (born September 25, 1954) is an American medical doctor and executive who served as president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 2003 to 2017. She was the first woman and the first African-American to head t ...
and was named the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey.


References


External links


Biography
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website; accessed October 19, 2017

Center for BioSecurity website; accessed October 22, 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Besser, Richard E. American pediatricians Johns Hopkins Hospital physicians Williams College alumni Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni Living people 1959 births Year of birth uncertain ABC News personalities People from Princeton, New Jersey Princeton High School (New Jersey) alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine