Elected President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he will replace Dr. Rachel Levine has been nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If the Senate confirms this, Levine would be the first federal official to be confirmed in the Senate, according to the Biden-Harris transition team.
Levine, who is the health secretary of Pennsylvania, is currently leading the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Dr. Rachel Levine will provide the consistent leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic – regardless of their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability – and to 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 guide our government’s health efforts.”
Elected Vice President Kamala Harris calls Levine ” a remarkable civil servant with the knowledge and experience to help us curb this pandemic, and to protect and improve the health and well-being of the American people. ‘
Biden-Harris Transition Team
Levine, a graduate of Harvard College and the Tulane University School of Medicine, completed her training in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. She is also a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine and serves as president of ASTHO, the Association of Civil Servants and Territorial Health Officers.
She has been confirmed three times as the Secretary of Health of Pennsylvania and the Chief Medical Officer of the State.
The doctor is also an ‘author on the opioid crisis, medical marijuana, adolescent medicine, eating disorders and LGBTQ + medicine’, according to the release.
In a recent interview with Melissa Quinn, CBS News, Levine spoke about Pennsylvania’s effort to ensure urban and rural areas have equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Pharmacies will be very important and necessary, but not adequate,” Levine said. “It’s not the vaccine that’s the problem. It’s vaccination. We have to give it to people. We have to get the vaccines in our arms.”
The Pennsylvania Equality Project celebrated her nomination and said in a statement to CBS Philly: ‘[W]I could not possibly be more excited for her and our community to have such a wonderful and inspiring representation at the highest levels of our government. Well-deserved dr. Levine – well deserved! We are sure you will work just as hard to protect Americans as you did in Pennsylvania for years! ‘
In her sensational role leading the state’s coronavirus response, Levine has become the target of harassment against online and online attacks. His exclaimed those responsible at a press conference in July.
“To the perpetrators and perpetrators of these actions, if your apologies are sincere, I accept them. But an apology is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation,” Levine said.
“As for me, I have no room in my heart for hate, and honestly I have no time for intolerance.”