WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump nominated Indiana’s health commissioner to serve as the next U.S. surgeon general on Thursday, selecting an anesthesiologist who promoted needle-exchange programs while serving under Vice President Mike Pence.
The White House said Trump nominated Dr. Jerome Adams to serve as the nation’s chief doctor. Adams was appointed by Pence, then Indiana’s governor, to serve as the state’s health commissioner in 2014 and was reappointed earlier this year by Gov. Eric Holcomb.
In Indiana, Adams has been a prominent backer of allowing counties to start needle-exchange programs aimed at stemming the spread of diseases among intravenous drug users as the state struggles with opioid abuse.
As the health commissioner, Adams oversaw the effort, which Pence reluctantly supported in 2015 after more than 180 HIV cases hit a rural southern Indiana county that were blamed on needle-sharing among people injecting a liquefied painkiller.
An anesthesiologist, Adams was an assistant professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.