The Board of the Department of Health elected a new chairman Thursday, replacing Dr. Luke Lampton, who had his license suspended in May.
Dr. Ed Dalton Barham of Clinton will chair the board, where he has served since 2012. Dr. Thad Waites, a Hattiesburg physician and board member since 2010, was also elected vice chairman.
“It has been a great privilege for me to be a member of the State Board of Health,” said Barham. “I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in a leadership position, and look forward to working with my colleagues to help promote public health in Mississippi.”
Lampton had served as chairman since 2007. According to the Department of Health, the board reorganization was unrelated to Lampton’s suspension. The suspension was immediately stayed for one year by the Board of Medical Licensure, meaning it won’t take effect if Lampton completes the requirements of the order.
During the board’s strategic planning meeting in April, both Lampton and Dr. J. Edward Hill, the vice-chairman, had suggested stepping down and creating new election rules including term limitations, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Health.
In a statement released Wednesday, Lampton said these “new election rules, including term limitations for board leadership will encourage broader participation by all members in decision making.”
In May, the board of Medical Licensure suspended Lampton’s license after an unrelated investigation uncovered several blank, signed prescriptions for Suboxone, a controlled substance, in a locked drawer in his office.
Lampton’s attorney, Katherine Gilchrist, said Lampton, who was out of town at the time of the raid, had left the prescriptions to be used specifically for pre-established Suboxone patients. Lampton is the only suboxone provider in Magnolia.
Both Lampton and Hill will remain on the board, and Lampton offered strong praise for the department and the board.
“During the last decade, the Mississippi State Department of Health has emerged again as a national leader in public health. It has been an honor to serve my state in this capacity and a joy to work with the excellent staff at the department over the years,” Lampton said in Wednesday’s statement.
The Board of Health is composed of 11 members appointed for staggered terms by the governor. Member duties include providing policy direction for the agency, appointing a State Health Officer, and approving the State Health Plan and all agency rules and regulations.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.