Michael Taylor to Step Down as FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine, will be leaving the agency on June 1, 2016. He will be succeeded by Dr. Stephen Ostroff. Dr. Ostroff served as Acting FDA Commissioner from March 2015 until February 2016 when Dr. Robert Califf was confirmed as FDA Commissioner.

Mr. Taylor joined FDA in July 2009 and assumed the deputy commissioner in 2010. While at FDA, he led the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Mr. Taylor plans to continue working in the food safety arena, “focusing on those settings where people lack regular access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food,” according to an FDA press release on his departure.

Dr. Ostroff served as FDA’s Chief Scientist from 2014 until he was named Acting FDA Commissioner. He joined FDA in 2013 as Chief Medical Officer in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and Senior Public Health Advisor to Mr. Taylor. Prior to working at FDA, Dr. Ostroff was Deputy Director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Director of the Bureau of Epidemiology and Acting Physician General at the Pennsylvania Department of Health. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and completed residencies in internal medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and in preventive medicine at CDC.