Surgeon General Says 4 Year Term Sandbagged By Administration Politics
Jul 11th, 2007 | 27 responses
Yet another piece has emerged to fill out a pattern that has emerged about the Bush administration:
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.
Note the words “public health” — so this should have been something that transcended politics.
But, in his testimony, Carmona made it clear that it did not:
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. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.
And there is more. Most American administrations make a big point of trying to plug The Big Guy in the Oval Office’s image.
But apparently the Bush administration has taken this to an extent that it veers into Cult of Personality territory:
Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.
And what about an event that most Americans seemingly support — something that in past administrations of both parties was part of a national consensus that it was an event where party labels didn’t matter?
NOT:
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.
The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.
When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family†was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.â€
And the official response to this?
The agencies responded on the issue. The White House responded in a statement that tried to discredit Carmona:
Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona’s statements. “It has always been this administration’s position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science,†Mr. Hall said.
Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said the surgeon general “is the leading voice for the health of all Americans.â€
“It’s disappointing to us,†Ms. Lawrimore said, “if he failed to use this position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation.â€
This isn’t the first allegation from former (and in news stories some PRESENT) administration insiders charging that political agendas, political ideology and/or theology trumped science.
But there is a pattern, unlike any Americans have ever seen.
Most other administrations considered medical and science news just that and released it.
Past administrations celebrated and encouraged science.
This administration sometimes tries to suppress it.
NOTE: Typo has been fixed on the headline. TMV regrets the error.
27 Responses to “Surgeon General Says 4 Year Term Sandbagged By Administration Politics”
Why do stories like this continue to not surprise me? Since this administration started, it has been a constant and unyielding factor that fact be made to support politics. Regardless of the source of the fact, regardless of the scientific backing behind the fact in question, it has constantly been twisted and spun until it fits the needs of 1600 Penn’s current resident.
It is a good thing that scientific principles do not have sentience in and of themselves. If they did, I bet they would be really tired of being treated like Silly Putty over all these years.
I also think this is quite serious. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about most of the trials against tobacco companies to comment too productively, but the administration deliberately trying to keep a lid on information about the dangers of second hand smoke sounds very much like what the tobacco companies were caught and fined heavily for.
And hating the Special Olympics?! Holy ****! I’m okay if that’s not some individual’s thing, but how hollow can you be inside to actively try and stop someone from lending a helping hand? Wow. That’s not criminal, just… nauseating. Talk about politics trumping everything. You’ll even put down handicapped children.
This is really disturbing morally.
I had to smile at the need to mention Pres. Bush three times on every page of a speech.
I started noticing years ago that not so much as a government report on the price of milk is delivered without kudos to Bush. It really has been a ‘dear leader’ administration.
It stops being funny when I think about how many have fallen for it.
In its own way, this is more insidious than the politicalization of the Just-Ice Department or the disemboweling of FEMA. This cuts to the bone of the need for the government to collect, analyse and dispense medical and public health information unfettered by political or proprietary considerations.
Conservative Republicans who have unfailingly backed their president presumably have loved ones who are faced with medical crisis. Without wishing harm on any of them or those loved ones, I would hope that even a small handful weigh the words of Dr. Carmona as they sit in the visitors room of a nursing home in some future year and look into the distant eyes of a spouse or parent whose end-of-life outcome might have been different had it not been for the deceit of the White House.
I wonder if those people who are trying so hard to demonstrate their concern for science will act the same way in the next administration when they come out with some outlandish risk statement at particulate matter (like in the Clinton Administration).
Also, during the Clinton Administraiton, the Republican Congress pass a law stating that if a government report is used to set environmental standards, that the producer of the report must make all of the raw data available. These days such a law would be called Congressional oversight but back then it was called the evil Republicans want to poison the environment law.
No matter what the topic, the desire to blame Clinton remains the same.
Although now the worst that can be said about Clinton is that he was just like Bush.
I did not say that Bush was like Clinton. However, the desire to twist research to one”s own political gain or to satisfy a political faction of one’s own party is irresistable to virtually all politicians.
Just look at the junk science that came out a couple of weeks ago about the first responders to the WTC. Democratic Congressman intentionally mixed up OSHA, state jurisdiction, and the EPA to make a political point. They also mixed up general population exposure with workplace exposure even though they are regulate very differently.
Should not the title of the post have the word sandBagged?
Wow! Now I get it! It’s not that Clinton is like Bush. It’s that the side you oppose is just as bad as the side you support!
It’s all too easy for someone on the losing end of a policy disagreement to scream ‘politics’… especially when there are so many people willing to believe anything critical of the Bush Administration.
Just because the guy screams political interference, and even with the silly ‘mention bush 3 times’, it doesn’t mean that there is any substance to his claims…. but of course that doesn’t matter to those (Shaun) who hate Bush so much they believe anything that someone says, just so long as it is critical of Bush.
And just how is not playing up the Special Olympics interfering with ‘science’? It may have not been a nice thing to do, but there’s no science there, just some games and contests and other feel good activities.
And in the obligatory disclaimer, I’m not claiming that politics didn’t play into this, it’s simply that the guy isn’t offering a lot of substance. Despite what bush’s critics might think, there is a whole lot of ‘science’ that isn’t set in stone, there is still a fair amount of legitimate debate to be had on a whole slew of topics (for example, the debate over the real implications of second hand smoke). But just like liberals years ago learned to scream ‘racism’ to derail any attempt to, for example, reform welfare programs, liberals today have learned to scream ‘political interference’ to derail the opinions of those they disagree with. Doing so is a cheap play, but to those who care less about playing fair than ‘winning, it is anything goes… especially when the opposition is someone as evil/stupid/corrupt as George Bush, right?
I am sorry to say I believe the man myself. Read the whole article. Dr. Koop is out there making the same statements and backing him up.
While there is truth that all administrations politicize all departments, there has been a march towards orthodoxy in this administration that is stronger than other, more recent ones.
However, and in fairness, it does seem that complaints about left-leaning scientific views being suppressed by right-leaning organizations get better coverage than the reverse. See global warming for instance.
AustinRoth the covering up of good science to meet any agenda is wrong, though it’s hardly surprising that people with a political agenda will tend to complain louder about such manipulation when it hurts them. Could you give some other example of right-leaning scientific views being stamped out to meet left-leaning policies? I know you might not agree, but the fact is scientific consensus is overwhelmingly on the side of Global Warming being both real and principally caused by human activity. That’s not to say that that an unbiased scientific study that shows otherwise needs to be ignored, and that sound science isn’t ever exaggerated to help political agendas, just that there is a place for consensus in science. 4 out of 5 dentists recommend chewing sugarless gum, what would you suppose is the safest bet?
AR – While agree with most of what you say, science doesn’t have a partisan leaning, it’s the people and the administration. Real science is without politics, peer review and the body of work prove a position.
Koop and Joycelyn Elders were controversial, serving administrations from both sides of the isle. Clinton fired Elders for speaking the truth, for upsetting the “bible thumper” crowd. Science, politics and our puritanical nature “never” make for a happy union.
This is just like the NASA flare up, this administration would be “flat earthers” if it would win some seats.
‘Most other administrations considered medical and science news just that and released it.
Past administrations celebrated and encouraged science.’
Clinton was not just like Bush. Even Reagan was not like Bush- Reagan was not a supporter of funding for AIDS, but at least he allowed his surgeon general, Dr. Koop to speak frankly about it.
SD- blaming Clinton for everything that has gone wrong in the Bush administration is really a very weak argument. Bush is a terrible president because of Bush —-not anything that Clinton did. Clinton left office with a large surplus, with reduced welfare rolls and a 70% popularity rating—after being impeached.
I interviewed Dr. Koop as one of my first assignments in joining the San Diego Union in 1982. It was quite a different situation for him in that administration — and that Republican administration was a whole different animal than the one we have now (or the one we had under Bush 41 or the one we had under Gerald Ford or the one we had under Nixon….weelllllllll…I now am starting to think…). The whole pattern of this administration, the way it makes decisions, the way it controls information when it tries to shape public opinion (selective or inaccurate) is unprecedented in modern U.S. history. Will this be the new standard operating procedure for future Democratic and Republican administrations — or will thinking people of both and no parties demand a “course correction” no matter who wins in 2008?
I notice that Dr. Carmona’s complaints sound very similar to Christie Whitman’s who after she left EPA said that the administration edited her press releases according to their ideological goals. I have a feeling that the worst news about Bush’s policies will come when he is out of office, because those still in his administration have been muzzled from speaking freely.
‘The whole pattern of this administration, the way it makes decisions, the way it controls information when it tries to shape public opinion (selective or inaccurate) is unprecedented in modern U.S. history. ‘
Joe, I entirely agree. The scale and scope of using inaccurate information to push a narrow
ideology on an unsuspecting public is truly stunning, as is the degree of politicization of just about every government agency. Isn’t that the reason so many now think we are going in the wrong direction?
Even if the next administration (hopefully) reverses this trend, there will be long-lasting damage because of high turnover of experienced career officials who are not political appointees.
Well, Rudi’s quote is just patently false, as anyone who does scientific research will tell you. Their a re a few field, the the very hardest of sciences, that it is closer to be being true, but even within physics and math, if you don’t play the political game, and indicate that you are going to get results that are acceptable to your patronage sponsors, funding can dry up. The competition for dollars in high-energy physics in particular is huge, and absolutely twists the results at times.
Scientific consensus. Invoked as magic words when you agree with it. What has ‘scientific consensus’ told us recently? Well, that we were heading towards a mass starvation, an ice age, the worst hurricane season ever (2 years running), allowing wildfires in national parks would destroy them, ulcers are caused by stress, oil reserves would be consumed by 1980, 1990, 2000, etc., the food pyramid is good, the food pyramid is bad, butter is bad, butter is good, and so on.
Global warming is a good example. That warming is occurring is a fact, as that is simply looking at measurements. The ‘consensus’ on cause is much more tenuous, despite the very political statement put out by the UN. There are very real questions as to whether CO levels are training or leading indicators, the accuracy of the current models used, the number of unknown and/or unfactored contributors, etc.
As much as we like to think of science as ‘the facts, ma’am, just the facts’, it often is not so. My favorite example is how Edison used ‘consensus’ to prove that Tesla’s AC power was inherently more dangerous and uneconomical than his DC power, until he drove Tesla bankrupt and out of business, and then switched over to AC power himself.
I think Austin Roth is mostly right. Science is a process. What he calls the scientific consensus is, though subject to correction, is a better standard for accuracy than most others.
This is why almost everybody, like Thomas Edison in AR’s example, likes to claim to the mantle of science, even if they don’t deserve it.
AR – Tesla was proven correct, I never said science didn’t involve personalities. Please link to DC power distribution. Edison’s move was buissness, not science.
Science isn’t perfect, but it does involve “proof” over faith. Science accepted the Newtonian version of the atom, even though it had flaws, until the quantum group came up with a better model. Science adapts when proven wrong.
Where did I even mention global warming? The models for global warming don’t fit into anything as concise as Relativity or the Uncertainty Principle. I should have said “pure science” or “real science”. But this administration also supports “Creationism”, what about that consensus?
There is not simply one organization, the demonized UN, that accepts human activity as being the primary cause of global warming. This position is also accepted by the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, American Astronomical Society (What, they don’t think it’s all the sun’s fault?), the American Chemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America. That’s just in the United States. What organization disagrees sharply? The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. And even they are having to rethink it because of members who weren’t happy with the statement.
The GOP war on science started with Reagan, but has dramatically accelerated under ‘W’. The GOP, believing scientists won’t support them anyway, demonizes them as ‘elitist liberal academics.’
sd, unsurprisingly invoking Clinton, sez:
The GOP got its law as soon as W took power. Pushed by Jim Tozzi, a former Reagan budget official and well-remunerated corporate consultant, the “Data Quality Act” has allowed industry-supported studies to challenge publicly funded research. It’s supporters don’t deny that the intent is to obstruct regulation.
Clearly, Tozzi is proud of his work that add a layer of industry ‘peer-review’ aimed not at discovering the scientific accuracy of research, but at obstructing efforts to regulate his benefactors. Is this the kind of “oversight” we need?
In science, there is always dissent. Any theory proporsed is subject to re-evaluation, adjustment, or reversal as new data and thinking collect over time. That’s what science is.
Anyone waiting for final, irrefutable resolution is doomed to wait forever and to remain unable to meke any decisions or take any action based on it.
When hurricanes are predicted in advance, early warnings are not without error, but it can be fatal to wait until 100% of people are 100% sure before leaving the area.
That’s where we are with global warming. There will never be 100% consinsus. Waiting for it before making decisions to act amounts to waiting for
santa Claus.
Politicizing science is just wrong. It iamounts to lying.
It is wrong if Clinton did it, it is wrong when Bush does it, and it will be wrong if the next president does it.
So, can we stop with the ‘but Clinton…” arguments and concentrate on not tolerating it, no matter who lives in thw WH?
Really the Clinton comparisons are unfair to Clinton, who at least never muzzled scientists in favor of big oil or big tobacco or big businesses that don’t want any environmental regulations that aren’t voluntary. If he erred by going too far to protect the environment, good for him.
The precedent set by this WH is unforgivable.
so Kim, you don’t mind political interference as a concept, but only when it runs counter to the end result you desire?
Stevesturm- I stand by what I wrote. If you want to support an administration that chooses to muzzle the surgeon general at the expense of public health education- be my guest. If Clinton acted to protect the environment, at least that benefits all of us.