The Obama administration is eyeing New York City former health commissioner Margaret “Peggy” Hamburg, MD, and Baltimore health chief Joshua Sharfstein, MD, to fill top positions at the Food and Drug Administration, The Wall Street Journal reports.

While working in New York, Hamburg started a needle-exchange program for intravenous drug users to reduce the spread of HIV. She also opposed the “morality oath” demanded by the Board of Education in 1992. Hamburg said that science-driven public-health practices, and not “moral judgment” or “wishful thinking,” should be the basis for educating youth on how to avoid HIV.

The White House wants the FDA commissioner to be someone who will lead the agency back to its primary mission of public health, and the focus on Hamburg and Sharfstein fits that message.