Since January, Dr. Leana Wen has served as Baltimore's health commissioner, heading an agency with a $130 million budget and 1,000 employees. Wen took over a few months before the city erupted into protests and violence following the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died in the back of a police van. She worked to make sure hospitals and their staffs were protected during the street violence. Wen argued that drug abuse, poverty, mental illness and high incarceration rates for blacks were the background for the protests, and that better programs for drug-addicted and mentally ill people would help.

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