Michael Olesker, The Examiner
2007-02-06 08:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Today Dr. Peter Beilenson comes in from the cold. The longtime high-profile Baltimore health commissioner ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress last summer, but didn’t get it. Then political insiders assumed he’d be named state health commissioner when Martin O’Malley became governor. But it didn’t happen. Then he was rumored to be the next head of the state’s Department of Juvenile Services. That didn’t happen, either.

So the state of Maryland’s loss is Howard County’s considerable gain.

Today, after 13 years as the city’s health commissioner, Beilenson will be named to run Howard County’s health department. The title’s similar. But the specifics of the two jobs is a reminder: Travel down a 20-minute stretch of highway, and you traverse the large social and economic divide between some of the nation’s most beleaguered urban neighborhoods and one of its most prosperous counties.

“No,” Beilenson was saying over the weekend. “The new job’s not like the old one.”

In the city, he wrestled with poverty and homelessness, drug abuse and AIDS and infant mortality.

“It’s not that Howard County doesn’t have some of these problems,” Beilenson says. “But not nearly to the extent that Baltimore has them.

“So we’ll look at things we didn’t have the time to deal with in Baltimore: chronic diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes. We can focus on making Howard County a model public health community, on keeping trouble from happening in the first place.”

In the city, Beilenson inserted himself into a series of controversial issues. Early in his years at City Hall, Mayor Kurt Schmoke made national headlines when he called for radical changes in the fight against drug addiction. Treat it primarily as a health issue, not a crime, he said. Beilenson backed him, and went further. With addicts spreading AIDS and hepatitis C through shared use of dirty needles, Beilenson started the biggest city-run needle exchange program in the nation.

In Beilenson’s last several years in Baltimore, the city more than doubled its funding for drug treatment — from 11,000 treatment slots to about 25,000. In the last three years, the number of drug-related emergency room visits dropped dramatically — “the second biggest drop of the 20 biggest metro areas in the United States,” Beilenson says.

Further evidence that treatment works? A joint study by Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Morgan State universities found a 69 percent drop in heroin use among those in treatment programs, Beilenson says.

And there was more. With syphilis spreading at a frightening rate, Beilenson instituted blood testing at crack houses. He bolstered staff levels at city clinics. With teen pregnancies at alarmingly new levels, he instituted long-term contraception counseling at school-based clinics.

So he had a considerable track record when he decided, more than a year ago, to run for Rep. Ben Cardin’s vacated congressional seat (which takes in parts of Baltimore and Howard counties) — a race that went to John Sarbanes in a field crowded with quality candidates.

On the campaign trail, Beilenson crossed paths with Ken Ulman, who was running successfully for Howard County executive.

“I got to know the county quite well, and I also got to know Ken and his staff pretty well,” Beilenson says. “We’d meet at League of Women meetings, Columbia Association meetings, things like that. We got along well. Then he called a few weeks ago to talk about the job.

“One of the nice things about him is his sense of the long view. He actually cares about things that’ll show up after his term ends. Like cancer. Like melanoma prevention, and lung and colon cancer, things that won’t show up on anybody’s radar soon enough to benefit him politically. But it means fewer people dying or getting sick 20 years from now. Those things transcend politics — and he cares about them.”

And the jobs Beilenson was rumored to be getting, but didn’t?

“Disappointing,” he says. “But I’m really excited to be starting this one.”

It’s a familiar-sounding title he’s getting — but a whole new set of challenges.

Michael Olesker is an award-winning newspaper columnist, author of three books and former commentator on local radio and television. He can be reached at olesker@baltimoreexaminer.com