Health Commissioner

Mayor Sheila Dixon announced yesterday that the city will investigate why high arsenic levels in a South Baltimore park were kept quiet for more than 30 years. "Testing in 1976 showed high levels of arsenic in the soil," Dixon said. "I want to understand why we are only learning about this problem now." Heading the inquiry will be the city's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, who ordered the closure of Swann Park on Thursday after tests showed arsenic at levels more than 100 times higher than generally considered safe.

Baltimore officials yesterday condemned the stable housing more than 50 ponies the city's a-rabs use to sell produce because of code violations and unsafe conditions that threatened the safety of the animals. City officials will meet with the a-rabs at 1 p.m. today to inform them that the ponies must be moved and to discuss possible short- and long-term solutions. A-rabs are produce vendors who sell their wares along city streets from horse-drawn carts - often announcing their presence with shouts.

Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, Baltimore's health commissioner, took himself out of the running yesterday for the post of District of Columbia health director. Beilenson, 39, had been recruited for the job and was one of two finalists. He said he lost interest because the process had dragged on for 3 1/2 months."It was putting my family in limbo and causing some disruption in the city health department," Beilenson said. "I just decided that with the chaos in D.C. right now and other factors, I should stay in Baltimore."

The scorching heat that has wilted Maryland this summer has also caused as many as 19 deaths, making the hot weather far more lethal than previously revealed.Baltimore's top health officer, who was not informed of the fatalities even though most occurred in the city, said the lack of notice prevented him from alerting residents to a potentially deadly health hazard."It's important from a public health standpoint to have this information," said City Health Commissioner Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, who had he had no idea anyone had died until a reporter called him yesterday.

A proposal for a research trial in which doctors would provide heroin to some Baltimore addicts came under fierce attack yesterday from elected officials as a symbolic step in the wrong direction."

Stung by the type of national attention no city wants, Baltimore's health commissioner branded as unfair a Harvard study that found the city had some of the worst life expectancies in a comparison of 2,077 locales across the country.The study, by Dr. Christopher Murray of the Harvard University School of Public Health, found that Baltimore had the third-shortest life expectancy for men and the second-shortest for women. Life expectancy for men was 63.04 years; for women, it was 73.27 years.

Amid mounting complaints about broken tombstones, sunken graves and protruding bones, Baltimore officials put a temporary halt yesterday on burials at a historic black cemetery.Mount Auburn Cemetery, a long-neglected graveyard that was once the only one for Baltimore African-Americans, also was ordered to come up with a management plan by May 3.Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church, which operates the cemetery, agreed to improve the upkeep after the city health commissioner picked his way through overgrown weeds to inspect bones and a skull sticking out of dug-up earth.

The Baltimore City Health Department shut down a Park Heights neighborhood grocery store for food quality violations yesterday, just weeks after some residents picketed the store and alleged that the owners were selling outdated meat.Health Department officials said that Canaan Discount Foods had an unpleasant odor and that inspectors have repeatedly ordered the owner, Eun Mu Lee, to discard contaminated meats and other food products."There are concerns about the products they were selling and cleanliness of the store," said Peter Beilenson, city health commissioner.

From The Sun July 31-Aug. 6, 1844July 31: In taking down the old Theatre Tavern, adjoining the Holliday Street Theater, the corner stone, which was laid, with considerable ceremony, in 1830, was taken up and the precious contents examined.Aug. 3: Michael Murray was committed to jail, in default of payment of a fine, for persisting in the use of profane language in the office of Justice Tate.From The Sun July 31-Aug. 6, 1894July 31: Large crowds again visited the excursion resorts yesterday.

AIDS activists yesterday chained themselves to the doors of the city health department and disrupted a Board of Estimates meeting, eliciting a promise from Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to consider complaints about Baltimore's AIDS programs.The demonstration began about 9 a.m. As pedestrians and police officers watched, some 30 members of ACT UP Baltimore picketed outside City Hall while one went inside to interrupt the meeting of city officials.Protesters then crossed Fayette Street to march in front of the health department.

The Baltimore City Council is set to hold hearings today on three pieces of legislation that would further restrict smoking in the city, causing some in the council to predict some heated debates in the coming months. Council members will hear the pros and cons of a proposed bill to ban the sale of single cigars, one that prohibits flavored cigar and cigarette wrappers and legislation to ban smoking near hospitals. "Generally, anything we do is focused on reducing cardiovascular disease," said Interim Health Commissioner Olivia Farrow, whose department supports all three measures.

When he took over as Baltimore health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein says, he was unsure whether he would last three days. Recalling that beginning in a letter to friends and colleagues this month, he described the public health challenges facing the city as "awesome" and named a few: young mothers unable to get needed support before, during and after pregnancy; thousands of residents who can't access drug treatment; tens of thousands shut out...

Baltimore has recorded the lowest rate of tuberculosis since it began keeping track of infection rates nearly two centuries ago, city officials said Tuesday. Last year, the city Health Department reported 32 cases of the disease, for a rate of 5 per 100,000 people. That's down from 47 cases in 2007, a rate of 7.4 per 100,000 people. "Thanks to an aggressive tuberculosis control program and effective engagement of community health care workers, the TB rates have steadily declined," Mayor Sheila Dixon said at a news conference at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, the site of a tuberculosis hospital in the late 1800s, when "consumption" was a top killer.

The city will launch a national search to replace Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the health commissioner tapped by President Barack Obama yesterday to serve as the No. 2 official at the nation's principal food and drug watchdog. "President Obama chose an experienced advocate with a proven background in health policy," Mayor Sheila Dixon said after Obama announced Sharfstein's appointment as deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. "The people of the United States are fortunate to have Dr. Sharfstein looking out for their best interests."

Baltimore's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, is headed to Washington to help reform the troubled Food and Drug Administration. That's a major plus for President Barack Obama and a great loss to Mayor Sheila Dixon, who found in Dr. Sharfstein a public health official as attuned to confronting the violence on the city's streets as fighting for the removal of lead-painted jewelry that could potentially sicken its children. Dr. Sharfstein, who led the Obama administration's transition team for the FDA, will serve as chief deputy to Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner who would lead the agency.

The White House reportedly has tapped Baltimore health commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein to be deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. The Harvard-educated pediatrician would serve under Dr. Margaret A. "Peggy" Hamburg, the former New York City health chief who is to be nominated FDA commissioner, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Sharfstein, the White House and the FDA all declined to comment. Sharfstein told The Baltimore Sun in December that he loved his job and was "looking forward to another year of public health progress in the city."

A growing number of Baltimore residents are being treated in hospitals for illnesses that could be prevented with routine medical care, a new study has found. The health commissioner says the data show "a fundamental failure" of the city's health system. City residents are being hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms for such conditions as asthma and high blood pressure at rates that are roughly twice those in surrounding counties and statewide, according to the Rand Corp. study. Baltimore's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, says the problem is the inevitable result of clinics that are stretched to capacity and a shortage of primary care doctors to serve the poor.

Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, Baltimore's outspoken health commissioner, is regarded by many as a leading candidate to head the Food and Drug Administration. Sharfstein is a former congressional staffer who carved out a national profile by convincing drug companies to stop marketing cough and cold medicines to young children. The 39-year-old pediatrician has been spending two days a week in Washington lately as one of a handful of people reviewing health policies for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team.

Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein will be reviewing policies at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a member of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, said Nick Shapiro, an Obama spokesman. The city health commissioner will split his time between Baltimore and Washington while doing the work. Sharfstein declined to comment on his role, but Mayor Sheila Dixon said last week that she was "keeping my fingers crossed as Dr. Sharfstein participates in something tremendous that's going to be beneficial to the city."

County officials tangled this week over a venerable institution: the school nurse program. Members of the County Council and the school board argued about the prospect of the health department taking over the program from the school system, and how best to serve the health interests of students. Councilman Calvin Ball got the discussion going by asking about the merits of turning over control of school nurses to the county health department, a model followed in several Maryland jurisdictions.