Woody Myers

Woodrow Augustus Myers Jr. (born February 14, 1954) is an American physician and political candidate from Indiana. He served as health commissioner for Indiana and New York City.

Myers is from Indianapolis. His father worked as a landscaper and his mother was a school principal. Myers graduated from Shortridge High School when he was 16 years old, from Stanford University when he was 19 years old, and from Harvard Medical School when he was 23 years old. He also attended Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and earned a Master of Business Administration.

Myers served as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and quality assurance chairman at San Francisco General Hospital.

In 1985, Governor Robert D. Orr selected Myers as Indiana's state health commissioner. He weighed 418 pounds (190 kg) when he took the job, but went on a liquid diet. After one year, he weighed 216 pounds (98 kg). As Indiana's state health commissioner, he supported Ryan White, a teenager with AIDS who had not been permitted to attend school, in his legal challenge against the school board. Myers also supported a law that called for recording the names of those infected with HIV/AIDS and quarantining "recalcitrant carriers" of the disease. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed Myers to the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic. He resigned later that year in the midst of infighting.

In 1990, Mayor David Dinkins appointed Myers as New York City's health commissioner. He resigned in 1991, in part due to opposition to some of his HIV/AIDS policies. Myers returned to Indianapolis, and worked for Wellpoint, Corizon Health, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Myers ran as a Democrat for the United States House of Representatives for Indiana's 7th congressional district against incumbent André Carson in the 2008 elections. He came in second place in the primary election, receiving 24% of the vote, while Carson received 46%. In July 2019, Myers announced his candidacy for the 2020 Indiana gubernatorial election.

Myers is married to his wife, Stacy, and has five children.