WASHINGTON -- Dr. Frank E. Young,dean of University of Rochester medical school and a noted genetic researcher, was named Wednesday as the new head of the Food and Drug Administration.
Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler, whose department oversees the agency, announced her selection of Young, 52, who is due to begin the job on July 15 at a salary of about $75,000.
'There are few tasks more demanding in federal service than heading up the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that oversees the safety and efficacy of what we eat and the medicine to cure our ills,' Mrs. Heckler said.
Noting Young's experience in medicine, teaching and research, she said, 'I know Dr. Young will measure up to this assignment.'
Young, who has been dean of the Rochester medical school since 1979, will succeed Arthur Hayes Jr., who resigned as commissioner last September to become dean of New York Medical College. Hayes held the FDA job for three years.
Young will join the FDA at a time when a congressional panel is examining its handling of a new injectable vitamin E solution blamed for the deaths of 38 babies and abnormalities in 43 others.
Acting FDA Commissioner Mark Novitch told a congressional hearing last week that in retrospect the agency should have tested the vitamin as a new product instead of permitting it on the market as a variation of existing drugs.
The search for a new FDA commissioner began last summer.
The University of Rochester said Young will be on a leave of absence from the institution while he serves as FDA commissioner.
How long Young remains will depend, in large part, on whether President Reagan is re-elected this fall since the post of FDA commissioner is a political appointment.
Heckler selected Young after unsuccessfully attempting to have the job filled by a woman -- Dr. Virginia Weldon of St. Louis Children's Hospital. She was offered the post earlier this year, but turned it down.
Young, a native of Mineola, N.Y., has been at the University of Rochester since 1970 when he went there as a professor and chairman of the school's department of microbiology.
He is particularly noted for his microbiology work in genetics research -- specifically in the area of recombinant DNA.
HHS announced Heckler's choice of Young as FDA chairman following published reports earlier in the day quoting department officials as saying Young would get the job.
At the University of Rochester, prior to the announcement, school president Robert Sproull issued a statement congratulating Young on his new post and praising his contribution to the institution and science.
Young received his medical degree from New York State University at Syracuse in 1956 and his Phd. from Case Western Reserve Univeristy in Cleveland in 1962. He is married and has five children.
