Washington: President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be his Assistant Secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the US Senate. Rachel Levine is a pediatrician and former Pennsylvania physician general. She was appointed to her current post by Democratic Governor Tom Wolf in 2017.
Levine won past confirmation by the Republican-majority Pennsylvania Senate. She has emerged as the public face of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health efforts,” Biden added.
Levine is a graduate of Harvard and of Tulane Medical School. She’s written in the past on the opioid crisis, medical marijuana, adolescent medicine, eating disorders and LGBTQ medicine.
Biden and his transition team have already begun negotiating with members of Congress, promoting speedy passage of the president-elect’s USD 1.9 trillion plan to bring the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 400,000 people in the United States, under control.
It seeks to enlist federal emergency personnel to run mass vaccination centers and provide 100 million immunisation shots in his administration’s first 100 days, while using government spending to stimulate the pandemic-hammered economy.
Biden has also said that, in one of his first acts as president, he’ll ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days to slow the virus’ spread.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris called Levine ‘a remarkable public servant with the knowledge and experience to help us contain this pandemic, and protect and improve the health and well-being of the American people’.
