NYC names new health chief amid H1N1 flu outbreak

NEW YORK May 18 (Reuters) - New York City named Louisiana pediatrician and epidemiologist Thomas Farley to head the city's health department on Monday amid an H1N1 flu outbreak that killed a New York educator on Sunday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose Farley to replace Thomas Frieden, who was picked last week by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Farley, who will assume his new job in June, has served as a senior advisor to Frieden since 2007 and helped implement the city's mandate that chain restaurants post calorie information on menu boards.

Calling his new post "the best job in the field of public health," Farley said H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu, would be his top priority but that he also would continue Frieden's work to curb smoking and obesity.

"There is more we can do to make healthy choices easier for people," Farley told a news conference.

Under Bloomberg and Frieden, New York banned smoking in bars and stopped restaurants from cooking with artificial trans fats, which clog arteries and raise the risk of heart disease.

Farley heads the Department of Community Health Sciences and the Prevention Research Center at Tulane University in Louisiana.

On Sunday, New York City marked its first death linked to the H1N1 flu. Mitchell Wiener, 55, was an assistant principal at one of the several public schools that have been ordered shut due to the flu. (Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Will Dunham)