Reply #5: I lost my link...but that's quite the family... [View All]

[stillcool]

Newsweek
Dec. 29/Jan. 5 issue - FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan oversees almost a quarter of the U.S. economy. Tapped for the job in the fall of 2002, McClellan handles such complex issues as cloned foods and regulating pharmacogenomics using DNA tests to tailor drugs to individual patients. He'll also handle two of the hottest issues of 2004: a proposal to approve over-the-counter sales of the "morning after" contraceptive pill, and the drive to import cheap prescription drugs from Canada.

A doctor and economist, McClellan, 40, has politics in his blood. His mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, is a former mayor of Austin, Texas, and is currently the state comptroller. His brother Scott is the White House press secretary. McClellan served on President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and in the Clinton Treasury Department. That experience could make him a contender for secretary of Health and Human Services when Tommy Thompson departs. If George W. Bush sticks around for a second term, chances are good he'll want at least one McClellan nearby.