Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo was a transparent and down-to-earth explainer of what was occurring in the course of the pandemic, usually on CNN and different networks. She’s pictured right here at a COVID press convention in April 2020.
Andrea Mabry /UAB
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Andrea Mabry /UAB
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo was a transparent and down-to-earth explainer of what was occurring in the course of the pandemic, usually 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 likely be changing Dr. Anthony Fauci as the pinnacle of its infectious illness group: Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, an HIV knowledgeable who involves the job from the College of Alabama at Birmingham.
Fauci served nearly 40 years as the pinnacle of the Nationwide Institute of Allergic reactions and Infectious Ailments, and he was each beloved and vilified within the position. He retired in December, after holding the publish since 1984.
Marrazzo, a Harvard-educated doctor and epidemiologist in her early 60s, was ceaselessly on tv information as an knowledgeable in the course of the top of the COVID pandemic. She will likely be taking up an enormous job — working an institute with a $6.3 billion annual finances.
Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor at Emory College and president of the Infectious Ailments Society of America, says Fauci and Marrazzo have a couple of issues in frequent. “They’re each of Italian descent, they’re each HIV physicians, they usually’re each excellent communicators,” del Rio says.
However Marrazzo is actually her personal individual, he provides. She has placing white curls and shiny blue glasses, and she or he delivered her coronavirus cautions in a transparent, down-to-earth manner, with dashes of humor. Del Rio says he counts her as a good friend, and he is thrilled with the information of her NIH appointment. “I really like Dr. Fauci, he is nice. However on the similar 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 college at Thomas Jefferson College in Philadelphia.
Earlier than she took her present job – working the Division of Infectious Ailments 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 development and growth in individuals, however on the similar time permitting them to be the individual that they need and wish and needs to be,” Balkus explains. “She brings her true self to areas, and invitations individuals into her life.”
One other good friend and colleague, Sharon Hillier, an OB-GYN professor on the College of Pittsburgh, says the world of infectious ailments is especially difficult now: “Loads of infections that used to solely be discovered extra within the tropics transferring 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 feel 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 knowledgeable in infections attributable to anaerobic micro organism, an knowledgeable on ladies’s well being and she or he grew to become an knowledgeable on COVID, Hillier says. “She’s often called an beautiful clinician. She’s often called an beautiful instructor.”
Hillier worries somewhat for her good friend, 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.
Associates describe Marrazzo as a straight shooter, a form colleague, with an incredible chuckle 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 all the time, all the time on the dance ground,” she says.
Marrazzo is certainly one of three ladies who’ve not too long ago been named to distinguished 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.
