Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo was a transparent and down-to-earth explainer of what was taking place in the course of the pandemic, typically on CNN and different networks. She’s pictured right here at a COVID press convention in April 2020.
Andrea Mabry /UAB
disguise caption
toggle caption
Andrea Mabry /UAB
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo was a transparent and down-to-earth explainer of what was taking place in the course of the pandemic, typically on CNN and different networks. She’s pictured right here at a COVID press convention in April 2020.
Andrea Mabry /UAB
This week, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being introduced who will probably be changing Dr. Anthony Fauci as the top of its infectious illness group: Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, an HIV skilled who involves the job from the College of Alabama at Birmingham.
Fauci served virtually 40 years as the top of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy symptoms and Infectious Illnesses, and he was each beloved and vilified within the position. He retired in December, after holding the put up since 1984.
Marrazzo, a Harvard-educated doctor and epidemiologist in her early 60s, was often on tv information as an skilled in the course of the top of the COVID pandemic. She will probably be taking up a giant job — operating an institute with a $6.3 billion annual price range.
Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor at Emory College and president of the Infectious Illnesses Society of America, says Fauci and Marrazzo have a number of issues in frequent. “They’re each of Italian descent, they’re each HIV physicians, and so they’re each excellent communicators,” del Rio says.
However Marrazzo is actually her personal particular person, he provides. She has putting white curls and shiny blue glasses, and she or he delivered her coronavirus cautions in a transparent, down-to-earth means, with dashes of humor. Del Rio says he counts her as a pal, and he is thrilled with the information of her NIH appointment. “I really like Dr. Fauci, he is nice. However on the identical time, we have to recover from it. The Fauci period’s over, now it is the Marrazzo period,” del Rio says.
Jeanne Marrazzo grew up in Pennsylvania close to Scranton. She was valedictorian of her highschool class and went to Harvard for undergrad, after which medical faculty at Thomas Jefferson College in Philadelphia.
Earlier than she took her present job – operating the Division of Infectious Illnesses on the College of Alabama at Birmingham – she spent years as a professor on the College of Washington. For Jennifer Balkus, an epidemiologist with the general public well being division of Seattle and King County, Marrazzo was a key mentor and one of many individuals who judged her dissertation.
“She finds these methods to encourage and push and foster progress and growth in individuals, however on the identical time permitting them to be the person who they need and wish and must be,” Balkus explains. “She brings her true self to areas, and invitations individuals into her life.”
One other pal and colleague, Sharon Hillier, an OB-GYN professor on the College of Pittsburgh, says the world of infectious ailments is especially difficult now: “A number of infections that used to solely be discovered extra within the tropics shifting into the subtropics as local weather has modified, a burgeoning epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, and international well being, together with HIV, however not simply HIV.”
Hillier says Marrazzo has a large breadth of experience that may serve her nicely when she takes up her place at NIH within the fall. “I believe what’s outstanding about her just isn’t that she’s identified in a singular space, however that she’s broadly revered in a broad vary of areas,” Hillier says. Along with HIV and different sexually transmitted infections, Marrazzo is an skilled in infections attributable to anaerobic micro organism, an skilled on girls’s well being and she or he grew to become an skilled on COVID, Hillier says. “She’s often known as an beautiful clinician. She’s often known as an beautiful instructor.”
Hillier worries a bit of for her pal, noting all of the assaults Fauci confronted. “No one’s going to be universally beloved,” she says. And she or he’s grateful Marrazzo is up for the problem.
Pals describe Marrazzo as a straight shooter, a sort colleague, with an important snort who loves going out for dinner. She’s overtly homosexual and, Balkus says, Marrazzo is a joyful and enjoyable presence at an annual convention they each attend. “A part of the assembly culminates in a gala dance, and Jeannie is at all times, at all times on the dance flooring,” she says.
Marrazzo is one in all three girls who’ve just lately been named to outstanding roles overseeing U.S. well being coverage. Dr. Mandy Cohen leads the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, who leads the Nationwide Most cancers Institute, has been tapped to move up all of NIH, succeeding Dr. Francis Collins. However the Senate listening to on Bertagnolli is on maintain, as Sen. Bernie Sanders makes use of it as a bargaining chip with the White Home over drug costs.
Marrazzo doesn’t require senate approval to imagine her position.
