Stephen Hahn con­firmed as new FDA chief

The Sen­ate has vot­ed 72-18 to con­firm Stephen Hahn as the na­tion’s 24th com­mis­sion­er of food and drugs, ush­er­ing in a long­time re­searcher and med­ical ex­ec­u­tive that faced lit­tle back­lash in the con­fir­ma­tion process but was wide­ly seen as a sec­ondary choice for those around the agency.

Four ex-FDA chiefs and dozens of high-pro­file groups had pub­licly en­dorsed for the job act­ing com­mis­sion­er Ned Sharp­less, who served from Scott Got­tlieb’s sur­prise de­par­ture through No­vem­ber 1, when Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump of­fi­cial­ly nom­i­nat­ed Hahn. Got­tlieb al­so gave his sup­port to Sharp­less on Twit­ter.

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