David Michaels PhD, MPH is an epidemiologist and professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. He served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2009-2017 and as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health 1998-2001. He joined the faculty at GWUSPH in 2001.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Michaels has focused on improving the protection of workers exposed to SARS-CoV-2. He served on two National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s expert panels: one that developed a Framework for Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus and a second that examined Respiratory Protection for the Public and Workers Without Respiratory Protection Programs at their Workplaces. He was a member of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board and the Lancet COVID-19 Commission’s Task Force on Safe Work, Safe School, and Safe Travel. Michaels is also an author of Getting to and Sustaining the Next Normal: A Roadmap for Living with COVID.
Michaels is a leader in efforts to protect the integrity of the science underpinning public health and environmental protections, and is the author of The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Doubt is Their Product (Oxford University Press, 2008). In addition to articles in Science, JAMA, the International Journal of Epidemiology, the American Journal of Public Health, and numerous other journals. Michaels was guest editor of a special issue on Scientific Evidence and Public Policy in the American Journal of Public Health, two issues of Law and Contemporary Problems: Sequestered Science: The Consequences of Undisclosed Knowledge and Conventions in Science and Law, and a mini-monograph entitled Science for Regulation and Litigation published in Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. Since 2019, when he was appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Michaels has been a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program.
Nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the US Senate, Michaels served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA from 2009 - January 2017, and was the longest serving administrator in OSHA's history. Under his leadership, OSHA strengthened exposure standards for silica and beryllium, and issued new rules on safety, injury and illness record-keeping and reporting, and hazard communications. He launched OSHA’s
Temporary Workers Initiative; greatly increased the agency’s
activities protecting healthcare workers; expanded OSHA's activities to protect whistleblowers under Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank, and 19 other financial, environmental, transportation, and public health laws; and issued OSHA's first
compliance guide and recommended practices for employers for preventing and addressing workplace retaliation.
Earlier in his career, he was nominated by President Bill Clinton and unanimously confirmed by the Senate to serve as the Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health. Serving in the position 1998-2001, he had primary responsibility for protecting the health and safety of workers, the neighboring communities and the environment surrounding the nation's nuclear weapons facilities. Michaels was the chief architect of the historic initiative to compensate workers in the nuclear weapons complex who developed cancer or other diseases following exposure to radiation, beryllium and other hazards. Since its enactment in 2000, the
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICPA) has provided more than $21 billion in benefits to sick workers and their families. He also oversaw promulgation of two major public rules: Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention and Nuclear Safety Management.
Throughout his career, Michaels has focused on the health of disadvantaged communities and the impact of infectious diseases on underserved populations. He founded and directed the Epidemiology Unit of the Montefiore-Rikers Island Health Service, the first such unit in a jail in the United States, conducting studies on tuberculosis, sexually-transmitted diseases, drug abuse, mental health, homelessness and HIV. In the early 1990s, Michaels developed a widely-cited mathematical model estimating the number of children and adolescents orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
Michaels received the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award for his work on behalf of nuclear weapons workers and for his advocacy for scientific integrity. He is also the recipient of the American Public Health Association's David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health, the John P. McGovern Science and Society Award given by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' William D. Wagner Award. In 2021, Michaels received the George Washington University School of Public Health's Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award and the Axelrod Prize in Public Health given by the University at Albany School of Public Health.
Michaels is a graduate of the City College of New York and holds an MPH (Master of Public Health) and PhD from Columbia University.
Twitter: @drdavidmichaels
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Personal website: drdavidmichaels.com