President Barack Obama is likely to hand over that reins of the distraught FDA - Food and Drug Administration - to Margaret A. Hamburg, an ex-Health Commissioner, New York City. Obama's pick for the FDA's Deputy Commissioner is Joshua Sharfstein, the Baltimore Health Commissioner.

As per a last month announcement, Obama also intends taking a complete review of the FDA - the agency that standardizes a multitude of products that account for $1 trillion in consumer spending.

While the 53-year-old Hamburg is an eminent bioterrorism expert - she was the assistant health secretary in the Clinton administration, actively involved in working out government's bioterrorism measures - the 39-year-old Sharfstein, is a pediatrician, sincerely endeavoring to counter the lapse in the sphere of cold and flu medications for children.

The appointment of Hamburg necessitates confirmation from the Senate, though Sharfstein's appointment does not. Once confirmed, Hamburg would be at the steering wheel of an agency dealing with issues like the salmonella outbreak traced to peanut products - which led to nine deaths and sickened more than 660 people - and post-recall situation pertaining to a blood thinner with an occasionally lethal ingredient traced to China.

Talking about Hamburg, Dr. Georges Benjamin, of the American Public Health Association, said: "She can be tough when she needs to be, and she's going to need to be real tough in that job!"