Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher Elected to Johnson & Johnson Board

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., former Surgeon General of the , was elected to the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson, the world's leading health care corporation, it was announced today by Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO Ralph S. Larsen.

Dr. Satcher served for four years as the 16th Surgeon General of the United States, completing his term in February. He had been sworn in on February 13, 1998.

"We are extremely pleased to welcome Dr. Satcher to our Board of Directors," Mr. Larsen said. "His notable experience in medicine and public health will add an important new dimension to the Board's oversight of Johnson & Johnson's business pursuits and its role in global health care."

From February 1998 through January 2001, Dr. Satcher served simultaneously in the positions of Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health. He also held the posts of Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry from 1993 to 1998.

Currently, Dr. Satcher is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C. Next fall, he will assume the post of Director of the new National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Prior to joining the Administration, Dr. Satcher was President of in Nashville, Tenn., from 1982 to 1993.

Dr. Satcher served as professor and Chairman of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at Morehouse School of Medicine from 1979 to 1982. He is a former faculty member of the UCLA School of Medicine and Public Health and the King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. He developed and chaired King-Drew's Department of Family Medicine, served as the interim dean of the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School and directed the King/Drew Sickle Cell Research Center.

A former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and Macy Faculty Fellow, Dr. Satcher is the recipient of many honorary degrees and distinguished honors. In 1986, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences for his leadership skills. In 1996, he received the prestigious Dr. Nathan B. Davis Award in the category of Executive Branch Member Serving by Presidential Appointment for outstanding public service to advance the public health. Dr. Satcher recently was bestowed the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

A graduate of in , Dr. Satcher received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He completed residency/fellowship training at Strong Memorial Hospital, , UCLA and King-Drew. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Physicians.

Johnson & Johnson, with approximately 104,500 employees, is the world's most comprehensive and broadly based manufacturer of health care products, as well as a provider of related services, for the consumer, pharmaceutical and medical devices and diagnostics markets. Johnson & Johnson has 197 operating companies in 54 countries around the world, selling products in more than 175 countries.