Editorial: Politics and public health

Thursday, July 12, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

Dr. Richard Carmona, President Bush's former surgeon general, told Congress on Tuesday that he was muzzled by political appointees from speaking out on a variety of scientific and public health issues.

"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," said Carmona, who finished his four-year term in 2006. "Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried."

Carmona told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he was not allowed to issue reports or publicly speak about stem cells, emergency contraception or comprehensive sex education that did not rely solely on abstinence. Also forbidden were issues involving mental health and global health. His landmark report on secondhand smoke was delayed and administration officials tried to water it down, he said.

The political manipulation became petty, as he says he was told to mention Bush's name three times on every page of every speech he gave and was told to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and attend political briefings.

At one point, Carmona said, he was discouraged from attending the Special Olympics because the charitable group has long ties to the Kennedy family. He said he was told that attending would have been seen as helping a political opponent.

There is no doubt that surgeons general have faced political pressure in the past as science and policy collide, but this is another example of the Bush administration overstepping the bounds of normal politics, infusing the nonpartisan workings of government with its own political spin. Scientists have previously complained about censorship on global warming. Science has routinely been ignored by an administration hell-bent on forcing its policies through.

This is unconscionable. Dealing with public health should be sacrosanct, but this administration is too sick to see that.