U.S. Public Health Service reorganizations of 1966–1973

The goal of the reorganizations was to coordinate the previously fragmented divisions to provide a holistic approach to large, overarching problems.

The quick succession of reorganizations created several operating agencies that existed for a short time, as individual components were shifted between them.

Its only major reorganization since then had occurred in 1943, which collected its several divisions into three operating agencies: the Bureau of Medical Services (BMS), Bureau of State Services (BSS), and National Institutes of Health (NIH), plus the administrative Office of the Surgeon General (OSG).

[5] The purpose of the 1968 reorganization was to create agencies that could coordinate the relationships between divisions with similar focus, providing a holistic rather than fragmented approach.

[9] CPEHS stemmed from a belief that environmental health concerned not only a person's natural environment but also the products they consumed.

"[15] A 1969 publication about CPEHS contained the editor's note, "Another reorganization of the Food and Drug Administration has occurred since this paper was prepared.

Even though these organizational details are no longer accurate, the paper is being published..."[7] The resulting organizations came to be seen as large and unwieldy.

[5][16] Another effect of the reorganizations was the creation of the position of Assistant Secretary for Health, a political appointee who supplanted the Surgeon General as the head of the PHS.

By the end of 1968, PHS's operating divisions were the National Institutes of Health, HSMHA, and CPEHS, the last two of which were organized as follows: The breakup of CPEHS was largely a consequence of the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, as the result of a desire by the new Nixon administration to gather all federal environmental activities into a single autonomous regulatory body.

[15] During 1970–1971, most of the CPEHS was moved out of PHS and HEW to form the core of the newly created EPA.

The Food and Drug Administration had already become its own operating division within the PHS earlier in 1970, causing CPEHS to be briefly renamed simply the Environmental Health Service.

[25] In 1992, the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration was abolished, with its three institutes and their research programs moved into NIH, and their treatment functions split off to form the new Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

NIOSH 's main laboratories in Downtown Cincinnati in 1974. During the period 1966–1973, the organization would pass through 7 operating agencies ( Bureau of State Services , Bureau of Disease Prevention and Environmental Control, CPEHS, Environmental Health Service, OASH , HSMHA, CDC ), and bear 4 names (Division of Occupational Health, Occupational Health Program, Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health, National Institute for Occupational Health). [ 1 ] While an extreme case, this was not unusual for Public Health Service divisions during this period.
Campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland around 1963. Although NIH would be largely unaffected by the reorganizations, the National Institute of Mental Health would be transferred to HSMHA in 1968, and then to the new Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration in 1973. It would not return to NIH until 1992.
Communicable Disease Center headquarters in Atlanta in 1963. After being renamed the National Communicable Disease Center in 1967, it would find a home in HSMHA, change its name again to Center for Disease Control in 1970, and be promoted to operating agency status in 1973.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. around 1963. FDA was moved into the PHS in 1968 as part of CPEHS, and became its own operating agency under PHS in 1970.
President Richard Nixon signing the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 . Along with the National Environmental Policy Act , it provided the context in which Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970 was enacted, creating the Environmental Protection Agency and leading to the demise of CPEHS.
Center for Disease Control Director David Sencer in 1970. At this time he was also serving as the acting Administrator of HSMHA; he would preside over its breakup a few years later.