Antonia Novello

Antonia Novello   (public health bureaucrat)
Born	August 23, 1944 Fajardo, Puerto Rico, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Puerto Rico, University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University
Spouse	Joseph Novello
Party	Republican
US Surgeon General. During the 1990 Gulf War, Novello expedited the approval of vaccines which turned out to be deadly. Also pushed for sweeping use of deadly drug AZT in children who allegedly had "AIDS".  Surgeon General of the United States In office March 9, 1990 - June 30, 1993 Gulf War syndrome. AZT to children.

Antonia Coello Novello is a Puerto Rican physician and public health bureaucrat. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the 14th Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. Novello was the first woman and first Hispanic to serve as Surgeon General. Novello also worked as Commissioner of Health for the State of New York from 1999 to 2006.

During the 1990 Gulf War, Novello expedited the Federal Drug Administration approval of vaccines for military personnel. Some of the experimental anthrax vaccines contained squalene-based adjuvants that caused severe autoimmune diseases and deaths among Gulf War veterans later on, in what was named Gulf War syndrome. Novello was given a medal for her quick approval.

In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a large-scale campaign to cause panic about AIDS, which led to several hundred thousand mostly gay men dying from the iatrogenic effects of the drug AZT. Novello was part of the effort to give this very deadly drug to children too. When Anthony Fauci, associate director for AIDS research, in 1989 told a House subcommittee that "The growing urgency of the AIDS epidemic is forcing a re-examination of how children afflicted with AIDS are treated with experimental drugs. Traditionally, children have not been entered into clinical trials of new drugs until the drugs have been shown to be safe and effective in adults, but we believe that the life-threatening nature of HIV infection may justify a modification of this policy," Novello, deputy director of the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development, at the same hearing, said "If current trends continue, AIDS could well be among the top five causes of death for children ages 1 to 4 in the next three to four years."

Career

Dr. Novello received a M.D. degree from the University of Puerto Rico. While in medical school, she met and married Joseph Novello, a U.S. Navy doctor. She later completed her medical training in nephrology (the study of the kidneys) at the University of Michigan.

Novello gained experience in pediatrics in Michigan until 1974 and, after postgraduate work at Georgetown University and several years in private practice, she joined the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in 1978, working with the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism and Digestive Disorders at the National Institutes of Health. She became deputy director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, where she focused on pediatric AIDS.

Novello continued to work in pediatrics at Georgetown University Hospital and in 1982 got her degree in public health from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. On assignment with the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, she helped draft legislation for the Organ Transplantation Procurement Act of 1984.

During the 1990 Gulf War, Novello expedited the Federal Drug Administration approval of vaccines for military personnel, for which she was later awarded the Legion of Merit, a military honor, by General Colin Powell.

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