About the Author

JEFF NESBIT was the public affairs chief for five federal agencies or Cabinet departments (Labor, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Social Security Administration and Health and Human Services) under four presidents (George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden) and former Vice President Dan Quayle’s communications director at the White House.

At the FDA, working with FDA Commissioner David Kessler, he was instrumental in the agency’s successful efforts to regulate the tobacco industry and ban the marketing of cigarettes to children; and create the first science-based nutrition labels. At NSF, he helped craft the public affairs strategy that led to the passage of the bipartisan America COMPETES Act. At SSA, he led efforts to protect the integrity of the Social Security program. And at HHS, he developed key communications strategies to defend the Affordable Care Act that now protects and insures nearly 50 million Americans; launch the IRA’s Medicare drug price negotiations that will save billions; create the “Risk Less, Do More” national public education campaign for three vaccines (Covid-19, RSV and flu); and respond to/prepare for a potential avian flu pandemic.

He has been a contributing writer to The New York Times, Time magazine, Axios, WIRED and Quartz and wrote a weekly column called “At the Edge” for eight years for U.S. News & World Report (2011 to 2018). He’s written 27 books, including POISON TEA and THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS with St. Martin’s Press; the Worthington Destiny fiction series with New York Times best-selling author Kevin Leman; the PEACE series surrounding the Iran-Israel conflict with Guideposts Books; THE INSIDER and THE CAPITAL CONSPIRACY with HarperCollins; ABSOLUTELY PERFECT SUMMER with Random House; THE BILLIONAIRES’ CLUB with Bancroft Press; and JUDE with David C. Cook.

His media company, Shiloh Media Group, helped create and launch three unique television networks for Discovery Communications, Encyclopedia Britannica and Lockheed Martin. Shiloh developed programming and a new cable TV network concept for The Britannica Channel; global programming partnerships for the successful launch of the Discovery Health Channel, which included a novel CME programming initiative and the Medical Honors live broadcast from Constitution Hall hosted by Regis Philbin and later became a 50/50 joint venture with Oprah Winfrey; and programming strategies for the creation of the first-ever IPTV network developed by Lockheed Martin. He was the co-creator of the Science of the Winter Olympics and the Science of NFL Football series with NBC Sports that won the 2010 Sports Emmy for best original sports programming; and a unique video series partnership with the NASCAR Media Group called the Science of Speed.

Prior to his most recent federal service in the Biden-Harris administration as the Social Security Administration’s Deputy Commissioner for Communications and the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at Health and Human Services (the largest domestic government agency in the world with a $1.8 trillion budget and 95,000 employees), he was a national journalist; a Senate press secretary; the founder and executive director of Climate Nexus, a nationally recognized climate communications non-profit; and a strategic communications advisor to media, health, science, tech, academic, corporate and non-profit clients including the Discovery Channel networks, Yale University, Lockheed Martin, the American Heart Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Porter Novelli and the American Red Cross.