March 5, 2009

Gupta sticks to TV, bags shot at becoming surgeon general

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CNN is reporting that its chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta today withdrew from consideration as the nation's surgeon general. The network said that its go-to health guy declined to comment.

News outlets reported in January that President Obama had offered Gupta, 39, a practicing neurosurgeon, the top health slot after a face-to-face in November.

The correspondent, who is known for reporting on public health crises from around the world, also has some political cred: he served as a White House fellow in 1997 and as a special adviser to then- first lady Hillary Clinton.

Last we checked, Gupta was reportedly weighing whether he could afford (or wanted) to trade in his lucrative TV and medical gigs for a government job -- and move his pregnant wife and two kids from his base in Atlanta to Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Obama is reportedly on the verge of naming someone to head to the embattled Food and Drug Administration, which is under fire for failing to protect the nation's food supply in the wake of a widespread salmonella outbreak. Among those reported to be in the running: Joshua Sharfstein -- also 39 -- and Margaret Hamburg, 54, who are also both physicians.

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