Washington – President Bush’s first surgeon general charged Tuesday that administration officials prevented him from providing the public with accurate scientific and medical information on such issues as stem-cell research and teen pregnancy.
“The reality is that the ‘nation’s doctor’ has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas,” Dr. Richard Carmona told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Carmona, who served from 2002 to 2006, said: “The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation – not the doctor of a political party.”
Carmona testified alongside former Surgeons General C. Everett Koop and David Satcher, who served in the Reagan and Clinton administrations, respectively.
Carmona said some fellow surgeons general told him interference rose to new levels during his tenure.
“The surgeon general has to be independent if the surgeon general is going to have any credibility,” said committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
The panel is considering reforms that would insulate the surgeon general from political crosscurrents. The Health and Human Services Department was expected to issue a statement in response.
The House hearing comes two days before a Senate panel is to meet to consider the nomination of Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James Holsinger Jr. to succeed Carmona.
Holsinger already has drawn political fire from leading Democrats and major gay and lesbian organizations.
As a prominent lay member of the United Methodist Church, Holsinger strongly has opposed liberalizing church policies toward gays.
Surgeons general are viewed as public-health advocates who serve, in essence, as the nation’s family doctor. Carmona said that when he came to Washington his attitude was “politically naive.”
When the issue of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research came up early in Bush’s first term, Carmona said, he felt he could play an educational role by openly discussing the latest scientific research on the subject.
Carmona said he was told to “stand down” from playing any educational role because a decision had already been made. He also said administration appointees who reviewed his prepared speech texts deleted from them references to stem-cell research.
Likewise, on the issue of preventing teen pregnancy, Carmona said he was not allowed to deviate from the administration’s position that abstinence was the best approach.
In fact, he said, he believes a variety of approaches are needed, including contraception for sexually active teens.
But the administration “did not want to hear the science,” he said, and instead “wanted to preach.”
