HHS Creates New Disability Office
A couple of weeks ago the Department of Health and Human Services
created a new disability office designed to help coordinate and implement
President Bush's New Freedom Initiative, as described in the following press
release:
Date: July 31, 2002
For Release: Immediately
Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343
Headline: SECRETARY THOMPSON ANNOUNCES CREATION OF THE HHS OFFICE ON DISABILITY
Accelerates Departmental Work on the New Freedom Initiative
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced the creation of the HHS Office
on Disability to oversee the coordination, development and implementation of
programs and special initiatives within HHS that impact people with
disabilities. Margaret J. Giannini, M.D., F.A.A.P., currently the principal
deputy assistant secretary for aging at the Administration on Aging (AoA), has
been appointed the director to the new HHS Office on Disability.
The announcement builds on the work of President Bush's New Freedom Initiative,
a comprehensive plan to tear down barriers facing people With disabilities,
which prevent them from fully participating in community life. The new office
will help centralize many of the recommended strategies outlined in a report to
President Bush, which explored solutions to reducing barriers in all areas of
society for people with disabilities.
"HHS is engaged in important and dynamic work to help the nearly 54 million
Americans living with disabilities," Secretary Thompson said. "The new Office on
Disability will bring increased focus and awareness to the issue, and will allow
the department to interact with valuable partners in the most effective manner.
Margaret Giannini will bring a wealth of expertise to the position and we look
forward to her leadership."
As head of the new office, Giannini will oversee the coordination of HHS
disability issues and special initiatives. Preparations are currently underway
to officially open the new office in the fall of 2002.
Prior to joining AoA, Giannini was the deputy assistant chief medical director
for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics of the Department of Veterans Affairs in
Washington, D.C. In 1979, former President Jimmy Carter appointed Dr. Giannini
as the first Director of the National Institute of Handicapped Research, now
known as the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research.
Additionally, Giannini was a founder and director of the University Center of
Excellence on Developmental Disabilities of New York Medical College, the first
and largest facility for the developmentally disabled in the United States and
the world. She is a Diplomate, American Board of Pediatrics; a Fellow, American
Academy of Pediatrics; and a member of the Institute of the Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences.
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