New York City's Bloomberg Leaves Mixed Results On Health
On the November day in 2001 when Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor, two things were prominent in New York City's air: fumes from the World Trade Center's smoldering remains, and tobacco smoke in the city's bars, restaurants and other public spaces.
Now they're both gone.
Bloomberg helped the city rebuild after the attack on Sept. 11, 2001. And he led the charge against smoking.
As a philanthropist, Bloomberg had been interested in public health for a decade. But as mayor, he was in a position to take the advice of experts and turn it into law, affecting how millions of people live their lives.
Dr. Alfred Sommer, from Johns Hopkins University, led Mayor-elect Bloomberg's search for a health commissioner. Sommer interviewed Dr. Thomas Frieden for the job. Unlike other candidates, Frieden didn't want to talk about bioterrorism. Sommer recalls the conversation: "'Tobacco. Tobacco's the big thing,' And I said, 'Ummm, Tom, have you heard about 9/11?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah, sure, and that's an issue we have to deal with, but I guarantee that tobacco use is going to kill far more New Yorkers than bioterrorism ever will.' "
Bloomberg bought it, beginning a push that made the city an incubator for often controversial public health experiments. He hired Frieden to crusade against tobacco, raise the stature of the Health Department, and to focus on chronic health problems, like diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
The department became a hotbed of research and ambitiously gathered data on the health of New Yorkers.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg swung into municipal action, raising taxes on cigarettes and proposing a widespread ban on public smoking indoors. At a hearing in late 2002, Bloomberg spoke in front of the City Council:
"The question before us is straightforward: Does your desire to smoke anywhere at anytime trump the right of others to breathe clean air in the workplace?"