Talk:United States Secretary of Health and Human Services

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Edited the table[edit]

I edited the table to integrate the notable things on each person into the main table instead of having them dangling by themselves over to the right with their own seperate pictures. Also inserted pic of Otis R. Bowen into the table. -Spintool — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.199.255.248 (talk) 08:07, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Numbering of HHS Secretaries[edit]

I have noticed a discrepancy in the numbering of HHS Secretaries. For example, according to her Wikipedia article, the newly-confirmed HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is listed as the 9th Secretary, but according her biography on the Department's website [1], she is listed as the 21st Secretary, which obviously means that the Department counts the Secretaries of its predecessor Department in determining the number of Secretaries of HEW/HHS. My question is, should we do the same on Wikipedia? As a matter of precedent, a similar debate occurred regarding the lineage of the Commandant of the Coast Guard on that article's Talk page. Any thoughts on this matter from my fellow Wikipedians would be most appreciated. --TommyBoy (talk) 03:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This list should include Secretaries of the HEW because HHS is the same department. The Department of Education Organization Act removed the Education functions from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and renamed HEW the Department of Health and Human Services. Section 508 is the one that renames the department and can be found on page 27 (the PDF and the document numbering are the same) of the act. -Rrius (talk) 05:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and merged the list of secretaries from United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into this list, and adjusted the explanation of the origin of the office to conform with reality. I also intend to expand the list of HEW Secretaries to look like the main table. -Rrius (talk) 06:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Duties[edit]

After the attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the position has held a unique significance in the War on Terrorism. Upon his departure, then-Secretary Tommy Thompson remarked "I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do..." Scholars concur, arguing that an attack on food (particularly milk) could affect approximately 100,000 people.

This does not need to be in the header. It's a quote that does not even specify the real duties of the HHS.Dumaka (talk) 03:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In your opinion. But it has been in the lead for over two years (silence=consensus), during which time it even underwent a featured list nomination giving it increased exposure. Please refrain from edit warring. --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not edit warring. I'm simply putting forth the fact that this doesn't need to be in the header. Dumaka (talk) 04:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I didn't see what you were doing. Thanks, I like what you did. --William S. Saturn (talk) 05:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you finally got it. If you had not been undoing every edit I made and just waited until I was finished you would have seen that. Dumaka (talk) 14:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fake Secretaries[edit]

Don't think Mckkee Williams, Abraham A.Williams, Jimme Keen, or William Mckiee are real. Never edited a wikipedia page proper so if someone who knows how would do so... Thanks.2600:1702:1F80:F490:C:B5BB:13C3:BC6B (talk) 00:25, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in United States Secretary of Health and Human Services[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of United States Secretary of Health and Human Services's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "UnitedStatesCode|5|5312":

From United States Secretary of State: 5 U.S.C. § 5312.
From United States Secretary of Defense: 5 U.S.C. § 5312

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 01:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]