PROGRAM
“In recent years, New York City adopted a series of bold initiatives to reduce smoking, to combat childhood obesity, and otherwise to promote public health. Tom Farley was there, and he tells the gripping inside story. Think that a public heath department can’t save lives? Think again!” (Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, and coauthor of Nudge).
Please join us as we welcome Dr. Thomas A. Farley, Former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, to Roosevelt House to mark the publication of Saving Gotham: A Billionaire Mayor, Activist Doctors and the Fight for Eight Million Lives, written while Dr. Farley was in residence at Roosevelt House as the 2014 Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health. Saving Gotham chronicles his history-making tenure as Commissioner of Health in the Bloomberg administration from 2009 to 2014. Dr. Farley will be joined in conversation by Dr. Jonathan LaPook Chief Medical Correspondent, “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.”
In his talk, Dr. Farley will revisit the ambitious initiatives that he spearheaded to improve the health of all New Yorkers, including successful efforts to reduce smoking and to stop the use of trans fats in restaurants. He will discuss the implementation of plans that cut sodium levels in prepared foods, the reasons “the big gulp” campaign against soda failed to pass, and how local health initiatives can lead to nationwide policy changes.
We hope you will join us for this important discussion.
SPEAKERS
Dr. Thomas A. Farley CEO, The Public Goods Project, Former Commissioner, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and 2014 Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health
Dr. Farley was Commissioner of Health for New York City from May 2009 to January 2014. In that position, he advocated for groundbreaking public health policies in New York City, including making the city’s parks and beaches smoke-free, prohibiting price discounting of cigarettes, raising the legal sales age of tobacco to 21, capping the portion size of sugary drinks sold in restaurants at 16 ounces, and restricting the burning of air-polluting dirty fuels to heat buildings. During Dr. Farley’s time at the agency, the New York City health department led the National Salt Reduction Initiative, which has successfully worked with major food companies to reduce sodium levels in food nationwide. Dr. Farley used mass media to deliver powerful messages to promote health behaviors, including creating the “Pouring On the Pounds” sugary drink ads on subways and televisions, introducing the “Two Drinks Ago” campaign to reduce binge alcohol drinking, and developing a series of hard-hitting ads on the health consequences of smoking.
Before joining the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Agency, Dr. Farley was chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He received his MD and Master of Public Health degrees from Tulane University.
Trained as a pediatrician, he served in the Centers for Disease Control’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and worked for the CDC and the Louisiana Office of Public Health from 1989 to 2000. In 2014 he was the Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy at Hunter College.
Dr. Farley is coauthor of Prescription for a Healthy Nation (Beacon Press) with RAND Senior Scientist Deborah Cohen, and author of the forthcoming Saving Gotham (W.W. Norton).
Dr. Jonathan LaPook Chief Medical Correspondent, “CBS Evening News”
Jonathan LaPook, M.D., is the chief medical correspondent for the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley”. He is also Professor of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and an internist and gastroenterologist at NYU Langone Medical Center.
In the area of teaching, Dr. LaPook is particularly interested in weaving media and the arts into the medical training curriculum, with the goal of improving the interaction of health professionals and patients. He has also done extensive work in the field of medical computing, including helping to develop an electronic textbook of medicine and writing a medical practice management software package that he sold in 1999 to a company that was later acquired by Emdeon Corporation, the parent company of WebMD.
Since 2006, he has done more than 600 segments for CBS News, including pieces for “CBS This Morning”, “CBS Sunday Morning” and “Face the Nation”. He has reported from Haiti on the effects of the 2010 earthquake, interviewed President Obama in the White House about healthcare reform, and covered a wide range of medical news stories. He has won two Emmy awards: for his coverage in 2012 of the national shortage of drugs, and for team coverage in 2013 of the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Born in Mineola, New York, Dr. LaPook graduated with honors from Yale University and received his M.D. from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was elected into AOA, the national medical honor society. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in Gastroenterology and Medical Informatics at Presbyterian Hospital, New York City.