Shocking News of the Day – Administration Interferes with Science

Shocking? Ha! Via the New York Times:

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

 

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said.

 

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name. “I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

I’ve come to expect the politicizing of sexual and reproductive health, specifically women’s. Politicizing the Special Olympics? That may be a new low.
However, it appears that this type of interference is nothing new:

Dr. Carmona testified under oath at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California. The topic was strengthening the office of the surgeon general. Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general in the Reagan administration, and Dr. David Satcher, surgeon general during the Clinton administration and the first year of the administration of George W. Bush, also testified.

 

Dr. Satcher said that the Clinton administration discouraged him from issuing a report showing that needle-exchange programs were effective in reducing disease. He released the report anyway.

Remember when Joycelyn Elders was was forced to resign from the Surgeon General post under Clinton because she dared mention masturbation? I think we already new sex ed wasn’t being talked about appropriately:

Similarly, Dr. Carmona wanted to address the controversial topic of sexual education, he said. Scientific studies suggest that the most effective approach includes a discussion of contraceptives.

 

“However there was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to preach abstinence only, but I felt that was scientifically incorrect,” he said.

Apparently, prisoners’ health is a sore subject as well:

Dr. Carmona said drafts of surgeon general reports on global health and prison health were still being debated by the administration. The global health report was never approved, Dr. Carmona said, because he refused to sprinkle the report with glowing references to the efforts of the Bush administration.

 

“The correctional health care report is pointing out the inadequacies of health care within our correctional health care system,” he said. “It would force the government on a course of action to improve that.”

 

Because the administration does not want to spend more money on prisoners’ health care, the report has been delayed, Dr. Carmona said.

The NewsHour also has a transcript of an interview with Dr. Carmona. Southern Beale has links to brief video clips of the testimony. The website of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has a more complete set of materials, including video of the hearing and PDF transcripts of the testimony from C. Everett Koop, David Satcher, and Carmona.