Robert G. Newman (October 26, 1937 – August 1, 2018)[1][2] was an American physician, scientist, health manager and philanthropist.
[1] His father, Rudolph Neumann (later Randolph Newman) was a lawyer who worked as a war-crimes prosecutor after World War II.
As early as 1968 Newman met the physician researchers Marie Nyswander and Vincent Dole, who in 1964 in New York City had begun to treat heroin addicts with methadone.
Under New York Mayor John Lindsay and health department administrator Gordon Chase, Newman introduced and expanded methadone therapy.
[1] Additionally between 1997–2001 he was president and CEO of Continuum Health Partners, and between 2001–2013 director of Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute of Beth Israel hospital.
[1] Kasia Malinowska, director of the Global Drug Policy Program at the Open Society Foundations described Newman as a "rockstar", saying, "He thought that methadone was an effective, easy, cheap public health intervention; that it’s insane to deny it to people who are so deeply in need.