President Donald Trump just nominated Dr. Jerome Adams, Indiana's health commissioner to be the next surgeon general. This was confirmed by the White House this Thursday and Adams will replace Dr. Vivek Murthy who was ousted by the current administration last April.
As confirmed by some reports, Vice President Mike Pence was the one who appointed Jerome Adams in his current position when the former was still governor. If Adams will be appointed from Trump's nomination, he will be at least the second top health official in the administration.
Indianapolis Star reported that Jerome Adams was trained as an anesthesiologist and since then was also an advocate for dealing with the opioid epidemic. It can be recalled that this was the same issue Murthy also took on when he was occupying the post of surgeon general. Also as health commissioner, Adams needed to deal with the consequences of opioid addiction most especially when there was an HIV outbreak in Scot County.
The said outbreak was a challenged to Jerome Adams who just one month after taking the post was met with the first cases way back in November 2014. In that same year, the health officials were able to determine at least 181 cases in Austin.
It was then reported that the said virus was transmitted through people sharing the needles which were used to inject painkiller. Because of the gravity the outbreak had caused, Pence ordered an emergency clean needle program who also overcame his opposition to needle exchanges.
However, despite the implementation of the emergency clean needle program, Pence was still met by criticisms as the program was deemed late already letting the virus to have spread to a greater number of people. But it was shown that needle exchanges can limit the spread of the said virus.
Just this month too, Jerome Adams emphasized the significance of needle exchanges and how this is beneficial to the people of Indiana. Even if the syringe programs are uncomfortable, Adams shared that they are still helpful in saving lives most especially in preventing the spread of diseases like HIV.
Apart from that, Jerome Adams also worked on naloxone, the so-called overdose antidote in Indiana. Lately, he took on social media how he was honored to be nominated by President Trump as the next surgeon general.
