Three doctors from UCSF have been named to President-elect Joe Biden's 13-member coronavirus task force, announced by Biden on Monday.
Dr. David Kessler was named as co-chair of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, which will advise Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on all pandemic-related data and issues.
Kessler currently is a professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF. He served as Food and Drug Administration commissioner from 1990 to 1997, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and he was reappointed by President Bill Clinton.
UCSF Dr. Robert Rodriguez also was named to the task force. A professor of Emergency Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine, Rodriguez works on the front line in the emergency department and ICU of two major trauma centers.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Eric Goosby, a professor of Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine, also was tapped for the task force. During the Clinton administration, Goosby was the founding director of the Ryan White CARE Act, the largest federally funded HIV/AIDS program.
Goosby went on to become the interim Director of the White House’s Office of National AIDS Policy for the Obama administration.
Biden on Monday vowed to address the "disparities that mean this virus is hitting the Black, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native American communities harder. … Focusing on these communities is one of our priorities, not an afterthought."
