July 14/Washington/The Wall Street Journal -- The Food and Drug Administration, whose relations with medical companies have been strained of late, named a former senior drug-company official and Dartmouth Medical School dean as its new deputy commissioner overseeing much of the agency's operations.
Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg selected Stephen P. Spielberg to the new position of deputy commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco. The appointment was part of a reorganization at the top of the nation's leading medical- and food-safety agency. Spielberg, a pediatrician and pharmacologist, most recently has served as director of personalized medicine at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.