The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine Michael Taylor announced on Tuesday that he is leaving the agency on June 1, 2016. Dr. Stephen Ostroff will become the second Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine upon Taylor’s departure. Dr. Ostroff led FDA as acting commissioner until the recent confirmation of Dr. Robert Califf as FDA commissioner.
Taylor joined FDA in July 2009 and was named to his current position in 2010. He has been heavily involved with implementing the sweeping reforms of the Food Safety Modernization Act and guided nutrition-related initiatives to reduce the risk factor for chronic disease and other adverse diet-related outcomes, according to the FDA announcement.
A nationally recognized food safety expert, Taylor has served in numerous high-level positions at FDA, as a research professor in the academic community and on several National Academy of Sciences expert committees studying food-related issues. He also served as administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and acting under secretary for food safety at USDA. Taylor plans to continue working in the food safety arena.
Prior to served as acting FDA commissioner, Dr. Ostroff was named the agency’s chief scientist in 2014 and was responsible for leading and coordinating FDA’s cross-cutting scientific and public health efforts. He joined FDA in 2013 as chief medical officer in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and senior public health adviser to Taylor. Prior to that, he served as deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
