White House Is Accused of Putting Politics Over Science
Brett
White House Is Accused of Putting Politics Over Science
By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON, July 10 - Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a
Congressional committee today that top officials in the Bush
administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public
health reports because of political considerations.
Dr. Carmona, who served as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, said
White House officials would not allow him to speak or issue reports
about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison,
mental and global health issues because of political concerns. Top
administration officials delayed for years and attempted to "water
down" a landmark report on secondhand tobacco smoke, he said in sworn
testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform.
He was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of
every speech he gave, Dr. Carmona said. He was asked to make speeches
to support Republican political candidates and to attend political
briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president's
senior political adviser, he said.
And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the
Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization's
longtime ties to the Kennedy family.
"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.
Dr. Carmona joins a list of present and former Bush administration
officials who assert that politics often trumped science within what
had previously been nonpartisan government health and scientific
agencies.
His testimony comes two days before the Senate confirmation hearings
of his designated successor, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., who was
nominated this year by President Bush. Two members of the Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions have already
declared their opposition to Dr. Holsinger's nomination because of a
1991 report he wrote that concluded that homosexual sex is unnatural
and unhealthy. Dr. Carmona's testimony may further complicate Dr.
Holsinger's nomination.
Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human
Services, said the Bush administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona's
statements about political pressure. "It has always been this
administration's position that public health policy should be rooted
in sound science," Mr. Hall said.
But Representative Henry A. Waxman, the chairman of the House
oversight committee, sharply criticized the Bush administration,
saying it was putting politics above health issues.
"Political interference with the work of the surgeon general appears
to have reached a new level in this administration," Mr. Waxman said
in his opening statement, adding, "The public expects that a surgeon
general will be immune from political pressure and be allowed to
express his or her professional views based on the best available
science."
In his testimony, Dr. Carmona said that at first he was so politically
naïve that he had little idea how inappropriate the Bush
administration's actions were. He eventually consulted six previous
surgeons general - Republican and Democrat - and all agreed, he said,
that he faced more political interference than they did.
On issue after issue, Dr. Carmona asserted, the Bush administration
made decisions about important public health issues based solely on
political considerations, not scientific ones.
"I was told to stay away from those because we've already decided
which way we want to go," Dr. Carmona said.
He described attending a meeting of top officials in which the subject
of global warming was discussed. The other officials concluded that
global warming was a liberal cause and dismissed it, he said.
"And I said to myself: 'I realize why I've been invited. They want me
to discuss the science because they obviously don't understand the
science,' " he said. "I was never invited back."
He said the science is clear that effective sexual education efforts
must offer what he called a "comprehensive approach."
"However, there was already a policy in place to only support sexual
education efforts that discussed only abstinence, he said.
After serving one full term as surgeon general, Dr. Carmona was not
asked by the White House to serve another. Before becoming surgeon
general, he was in the Army Special Forces, earned two purple hearts
in the Vietnam War, was a trauma surgeon and a leader of the Pima
County, Ariz., SWAT team. He is now vice chairman of Canyon Ranch, a
resort and residential development company.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/washington/11cnd-surgeon.html