Embattled Disease Agency Chief Is Quitting
Dr. Koplan's departure will create another opening at the top level of the Public Health Service, which already has many vacancies.
Drug companies are discovering new cures every week, but the Food and Drug Administration has no commissioner. Congress is doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health, but the agency has been without a presidentially appointed director since Dr. Harold E. Varmus left in December 1999.

Dr. David Satcher, the surgeon general of the United States, left office last week when his term expired. He had been appointed by President Bill Clinton.

Dr. Alastair J. J. Wood, a drug- safety expert at Vanderbilt University who was seen as a leading candidate for commissioner of the drug agency, has been told that he is no longer in the running, a university spokesman said today. Some drug company executives had said they worried that he might be too zealous in regulating their products. Dr. Wood had suggested that the drug agency should be more aggressive in monitoring medicines on the market.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/22/health/22CDC.html