State Public Health Officer Steps Down

A nationally known physician who was one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most prestigious appointees has resigned, 14 months after he accepted a post on an expectation that he could establish a major statewide public health office.

Dr. Richard J. Jackson, whose resignation is effective June 30, stated in a letter to top Schwarzenegger administration health officials that he was quitting to return to the Bay Area, about 90 miles from Sacramento, to be closer to his family and to pursue “long-standing academic interests.”

Although Jackson declined to comment Wednesday, several county ealth officers close to him lamented his resignation and said the Schwarzenegger administration had failed to provide sufficient support for the post of state public health officer.

“It is an untenable situation,” said Dr. Scott Morrow, San Mateo County’s health officer and head of the Health Officers’ Assn. of California. “It is an unsupportive environment, and he can’t do what he needs to do as public health officer.... That California can’t retain someone that visionary ... is an indictment of the Department of Health Services.”

A Schwarzenegger plan issued at the start of the Republican governor’s tenure last year, and a 2003 report by the government watchdog Little Hoover Commission, urged the creation of a strong department of public health. Some have urged that California have a state physician akin to the U.S. surgeon general.

A bill to strengthen the health officer position stalled in the Legislature last year and is pending this year.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe dismissed statements that Jackson’s departure reflected poorly on the Schwarzenegger administration’s commitment to public health. She said Jackson was “clear in terms of the reasons for his resignation -- to work and live in the Bay Area.”

“They’re trying to make a political point to advance whatever political interest they’re trying to advance,” Belshe said of health officers and others who used Jackson’s pending departure to criticize the administration.

The Department of Health Services oversees the massive Medi-Cal program, which provides healthcare to low-income people. The department also enforces standards at hospitals and nursing homes, and has a public health function that includes such responsibilities as overseeing food safety, combating tobacco use and tracking infectious and communicable diseases.

Jackson came to the health department as public health officer, reporting to the department’s director, in March 2004 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Before that, he had been director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health. He had also headed California’s communicable disease control division in the early 1990s.

In the national posts, Jackson was involved in bioterrorism preparedness and was expected, when he returned to Sacramento, to help California improve its ability to respond to such attacks.

In his current post he has been responsible for overseeing the health department’s emergency preparedness programs and providing leadership on such public health issues as the obesity epidemic and revitalization of the state’s public health workforce.

Dr. Anthony Iton, Alameda County’s public health officer, called Jackson’s departure a “punch in the gut for local and state public health in California.”

“Dick’s leadership was sorely needed and will be sorely missed,” he said. “I think he miscalculated the degree of intransigence in the state health bureaucracy, and the lack of public health vision within that agency.”

President Bush named Jackson a recipient of a 2004 Presidential Rank Award, recognizing him as a “distinguished executive” for his “outstanding leadership, accomplishments and service over an extended period of time” at the CDC.

In a statement touting the award, California health department Director Sandra Shewry said: “We are fortunate to have an individual with Dr. Jackson’s experience, accomplishments and reputation working” in the department.

“This honor is a public proclamation of what we already know here in California: Dr. Jackson’s untiring work to improve public health benefits all residents of this state and this country,” she said.

That release was dated three weeks before May 16, when Jackson submitted his resignation.

“Bold thinker; our loss,” state Senate Health Committee Chairwoman Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) said of Jackson. “He wanted to do great things in a very constricted environment. It is a failure for California.”

Ortiz is pushing legislation to create a strong public health office, and she said the public health officer should be a Cabinet-level post or at least a department director rather than one of many officials within the health department.

Los Angeles County’s public health officer, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, called Jackson’s departure a “great loss” and said it was “extremely important to have a very strong public health office in the state.”

Early in his career, Jackson worked on smallpox eradication for the World Health Organization in India and was an epidemic intelligence officer for the U.S. Public Health Service.