Ex-Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona: "Muzzled." (Updated!)

posted by Damozel | Bush's former Surgeon General has just confirmed to Congress what people who were paying attention already knew: the Bush Administration didn't shrink from reframing science and medicine to serve its own political agenda.   I suppose that when you know (or "know") that you are right (or Right), allowing your experts to express their own views or stick to mere facts just seems finicky if not obstructionist.  After all, nothing should get in the way of Truth, including truth.

But Dr. Richard Carmona, Surgeon General from 2002 to 2006, self-servingly believed that the Surgeon General's duty was to the nation rather than to the Administration.  The Administration begged to differ.  ""Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried....The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party,"" (Reuters) 

Dr. Carmona told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that "political appointees in the administration routinely scrubbed his speeches for politically sensitive content and blocked him from speaking out on public health matters such as stem cell research, abstinence-only sex education and the emergency contraceptive Plan B."  (The Washington Post)

Here are some of the specific ways in which he claims the Administration politicized his role:

• "[H]e said he wasn't allowed to make a speech at the Special Olympics because it was viewed as benefiting a political opponent. However, he said was asked to speak at events designed to benefit Republican lawmakers."(The Washington Post)
• "Carmona, a former professor of surgery and public health at the University of Arizona, said he was told not to speak out during the national debate over whether the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research, which President Bush opposes."  (The Washington Post)
• "Another report, on global health challenges, was never released after the administration demanded changes that he refused to make, Carmona said...."I was told this would be a political document or you're not going to release it." Carmona said. "I said it can't be a political document because the surgeon general never releases political documents. I release scientific documents that will help our elected officials and the citizens understand the complex world we live in and what their responsibilities are.""(The Washington Post)
• "[H]is speeches were edited by political appointees, and he was told not to talk about certain issues. For example, he supported comprehensive sex education that would include abstinence in the curriculum, rather than focusing solely on abstinence."(The Washington Post)

Carmona, one of three former surgeon generals who testified at the hearing, said, "Much of the discussion was being driven by theology, ideology, [and] preconceived beliefs that were scientifically incorrect...I thought, 'This is a perfect example of the surgeon general being able to step forward, educate the American public.' . . . I was blocked at every turn. I was told the decision had already been made -- 'Stand down. Don't talk about it.' That information was removed from my speeches."" (The Washington Post)    Duh!  What did they think they picked him for, to tell the truth as he saw it, or to tell the Administration's Truths?  How self-centered!

I am sure that those outside the Bush Administration who supported him must be very disappointed.  In 2002, columnist Dave Kopel of National Review Online found published an embarrassingly gushy article "defending" him from the criticism of certain physicians who'd opposed his elevation to surgeon general.  It's a fascinating article, more for what it shows about right wing hubris before the Bush Administration's aura of sanctity began, along with its credibility, to collapse like a rotten melon, than for what it says about the admirable Dr. Carmona (who didn't need Kopel's help to get confirmed).  It incidentally reveals why Republicans were so susceptible to the flight suit and the "Mission Accomplished" and the "Bring it on."  Kopel's article begins with the immortal line: "Testosterone is in again." 

The article continues, "Our new surgeon general displays the manly virtue of courage that our nation has again  learned to admire since we went to war. The confirmation process reflects our rediscovered consensus that real men aren't afraid to use force —even deadly force — when necessary to protect a woman from a violent predator." (National Review Online)     Carmona---"a sheriff's deputy and SWAT team member"--- shot and killed a man who was holding a woman hostage.(National Review Online)   This got him "denounced" by  certain other doctors who took the phrase "First, do no harm" all too literally and weren't comfortable with the idea of a Surgeon General who had actually killed a man.  (For the record, I think this was a ridiculous objection under the circumstances.)  Kopel: "Carmona had done his job as a sworn peace officer and saved the life of an innocent woman, as well as his own.....Because Dr. Carmona  was carrying a gun and knew how to use it, a violent criminal died, and two or more innocent women and men survived. By the moral calculus of  most people, this would seem a very good result. "  (National Review Online) 

While according to my moral calculus the killing of anyone without due process of law is never really a "good result," I wouldn't dare presume to judge Dr. Carmona for deciding in exigent circumstances that it was necessary.  Unlike Kopel, I doubt he saw the decision to shoot as a testosterone-fueled assertion of his manhood.  I imagine instead that it was the sort of split-second decision that his training told him he had to make.  But I think we can take it that Kopel admired Dr. Carmona as a real manly man's man:  a man of dedication and courage.  I don't doubt it.  And that's one reason why it's so astonishing that the Bush Administration was able to silence him for so many years.

The part of Kopel's NRO article that I really want to zoom in on is the part where Kopel denounces the doctors who denounced Dr. Carmona.

As Dean Curran's denunciation of the life-saving Dr. Carmona highlights, "public health" is, in some hands, increasingly becoming an instrument of moral intolerance, rather than of genuine public health.      

This is why the "public-health" campaign against guns and gun owners tends to ignore or disparage lawful defensive uses of firearms  against criminals, or against genocidal governments — even though genocide is surely the worst possible "health outcome."       

Rather notably, many of the prime targets of today's "public-health" puritans are same targets which have always been so bothersome to people who insist that everyone live by a single standard of moral purity: tobacco, alcohol, and food. But rather than make the straightforward (and not implausible) moral arguments against smoking, drinking, and gluttony, the "public health" puritans wrap their claims in spurious factoids created by       bogus research .(National Review Online) 

Ironically, Dr. Carmona seems to have encountered a fair amount of puritanism and intolerance from the Bush Administration. 

Carmona said the administration prevented him from voicing views on stem cell research. Many scientists see it as a promising avenue for curing many diseases. But because it involves destroying human embryos, opponents call it immoral.   

Carmona said he was prevented from talking publicly even about the science underpinning the research to enable the U.S. public to have a better understanding of a complicated issue. He said most of the public debate over the matter has been driven by political, ideological or theological motivations.   

He says he was also was prevented from speaking out about his views on contraception and the administration. (Reuters)

This may explain a mystery cited in a 2003 NRO article by Dr. Henry I. Miller.

[F]ederal  officials should embark on a campaign to educate local authorities and         citizens about the safety and potential importance of DDT. Right now, most of what people hear is the reflexively anti-pesticide drumbeat of  the environmental movement. To accomplish this, however, a senior public health official will need to come forth and champion the issue.... The U.S. Surgeon General, Richard Carmona, seems a likely candidate — or at least he would be if he weren't completely invisible. (One wonders whether he has settled permanently  into the "undisclosed location" inhabited by Vice-President Dick Cheney during crises.)(National Review Online; emphasis mine) 

Well, now we know, don't we, why we didn't hear more from Dr. Carmona?

White House spokesman Tony Fratto is "disappointed" that Dr. Carmona didn't make better use of his opportunities.  ""As surgeon general, Dr. Carmona was given the authority and had the obligation to be the leading voice for the health of all Americans," Fratto said. "It's disappointing to us if he failed to use his position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation."(The Washington Post)"

Politically naive by his own account when he accepted the position, Carmona says that he was astounded "at the partisanship and manipulation he witnessed as administration political appointees hemmed him in." (Reuters)  Fortunately, he had some former Surgeon Generals to console him.   He says some of them told him, """We have never seen it as partisan, as malicious, as vindictive, as mean-spirited as it is today, and you clearly have worse than anyone's had.""(Reuters)  And as The Washington Post reminds us, Dr. Carmona was only one of  "several current and former federal science officials who have complained of political interference." 

In August 2006, Dr. Carmona  left his post as Surgeon General. (CBS News)  This eruption comes two days before the Senate Hearing on his successor and in tandem with an impassioned "J'accuse" by a current (for now) attorney in the Department of Justice. 

Who's next, I wonder?

CITED, LINKED, OR QUOTED

• Ex-Surgeon General Says White House Hushed Him (The Washington Post)
• Former Bush surgeon general says he was muzzled (Reuters)
• United States Department of Health and Human Services (Biography of Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S.)
• Henry I. Miller, Rough (West) Nile Waters (National Review Online)
• Who is Dr. Richard Carmona?  (CNN.Net)
• Surgeon General Leaves Post  (CBS News)
• Dave Kopel & Timothy Wheeler , This One's a General (National Review Online)
• Kevin Freking, Carmona Says Administration Muzzled Him (The Washington Post)

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