March 26, 2002 - President Names NIH Head, Surgeon General

President Bush announced today that he will nominate Elias Zerhouni, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, to head the National Institutes of Health, and Richard Carmona, M.D., a trauma surgeon from Arizona, to be Surgeon General.

In a statement, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson described Zerhouni as an outstanding medical innovator and researcher and Carmona as an expert in bioterrorism who has served as a police officer with the sheriff’s SWAT team in Pima County, Arizona.

Both nominations must be confirmed by the Senate.