Surgeon General

Richard Nixon was a crook. He was also a liar and anti-Semite who sought to subvert the Constitution. I wish he was president again. I'd also take Jimmy Carter, widely perceived as being about as effectual as Elmer Fudd, or Bill Clinton, fastest zipper in the West. Flawed men, yes, but say this much for them: When it came to a choice between people and party, between the public and the politics, there was at least a bare chance they would put the people, the public, first. No such chance exists with the current occupant of the mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue.

My robe gonna fit me well, Tried it on at the gates of Hell, Keep your hand on the plow, Hold on! - Negro spiritual You could hear the slight weariness, the semi-artificial cheer, the hurry-slowly tempo in Tony Snow's voice. The president's always pressed-for-time-and-running-late spokesperson was conducting still another pre-State of the Union conference call Tuesday afternoon at about 3:30 Washington compressed time. He was talking to a passel of us editorial writers in the hinterlands, well aware that even out here his boss' poll numbers were sinking almost as low as Harry Truman's during the lowest, most discouraging point in the seemingly endless Korean War. You had to be a hardhearted zealot or a Democratic operative, but we repeat ourselves, not to feel a twinge of sympathy for the always personable Mr. Snow.

WASHINGTON -- Speaking days after the last surgeon general told Congress that he had been muzzled by the White House, President Bush's new nominee for the post told senators yesterday that he would quit before he let politics interfere with science. Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., a Kentucky cardiologist, also sought to distance himself from a 16-year-old church paper in which he characterized gay sex as abnormal and unhealthy. "I can only say that I have a deep, deep appreciation for the essential humanity of everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances or their sexual orientation," Holsinger, 68, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

THIS PAST summer, Dr. David Satcher, the U.S. surgeon general, identified suicide as a major public health threat and unveiled a comprehensive program to reduce suicides nationwide.Recently, he shed much-needed light on this tragedy by testifying in the first Senate hearings on suicide. Aside from the high-profile cases, such as the Columbine High School tragedy, suicide is not a hot subject for many news organizations, even though it has claimed far more lives in America for decades than homicides.

I STARTED smoking in the summer of 1964. I played some mindless game on the boardwalk of Wildwood, N.J., tossing a volleyball onto a collection of muffin tins, and the ball landed on a colored one, and I won a pack of cigarettes.So began a habit that, in the 1960s, was merely a rite of passage into adulthood. I am now in the process of quitting the habit. I say "in the process" because it's turned out to be a rather difficult enterprise, and while I expect to succeed eventually, it's decidedly not much fun. Now I fervently wish that in 1964 on the New Jersey coast I'd played miniature golf that night instead.

AS CONGRESS puts the finishing touches on the juvenile justice bill, it is time to ask ourselves: Who is teaching our kids to kill?In the United States, per capita aggravated assaults are up almost sixfold since 1957.I sat beside U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher on "Meet the Press" after the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo. He was asked if he could do a report on the link between media violence and violence in our kids."Sure, I can do another surgeon general's report," he said, "but why don't we start by reading the 1972 surgeon general's report?"

Starr wants powers he should have, for an investigation not worth making. How do justices decide that?If Our Daily Bread was going to move, it should not have taken money from the Weinberg Foundation to build where it is.The Islamic Bomb has joined Hindu and Jewish ones. Together they don't stack up against the Christian Bombs.The surgeon general has found that cigars aren't chic.Pub Date: 6/01/98

WASHINGTON -- The Senate easily confirmed Dr. David Satcher yesterday as U.S. surgeon general, brushing aside complaints about his views on abortion and AIDS-related research.In the 63-35 vote to approve President Clinton's second nominee for the job in the past three years, more than a third of the Senate's Republicans joined the majority. The nomination had to overcome opponents' charges that Satcher favored late-term abortions, sponsored questionable AIDS research abroad, and backed needle-exchange programs for drug abusers.

Ending decades of government neglect, the Federal Trade Commission is now investigating whether cigars should carry a U.S. surgeon general's warning label to alert consumers about the product's deadly consequences.The inspector general's office of the Department of Health and Human Services is also launching a two-pronged inquiry into how cigars escaped federal regulations and how teen-agers and young adults are being lured to smoke cigars and other tobacco products. Policy recommendations are expected to follow.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher denounced cigars yesterday as "very dangerous," saying he would support any move by Congress to impose a warning label on the popular product and to craft broad regulations on all tobacco sales and advertising.In his first public comments on the issue, Satcher said cigars can be just as lethal as cigarettes and that he is especially worried about the rise in smoking among children. He also said he was disturbed by the "glamorization of cigars" by the entertainment industry.

WASHINGTON - -In a historic shift in public health policy almost half a century after the U.S. surgeon general first warned of the lethal dangers of smoking, Congress is poised to give the federal government sweeping new authority to regulate the manufacturing of cigarettes and other tobacco products. The legislation, long resisted by the tobacco industry, could allow consumers to see for the first time what chemicals and other additives tobacco companies put in their products. It would empower the Food and Drug Administration to put new limits on harmful ingredients and prohibit tobacco companies from marketing "light" cigarettes.

President-elect Barack Obama has asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta to be the next surgeon general, looking to a popular television personality to help provide a public face for his health care agenda. A health and medicine correspondent for CNN and CBS, Gupta, 39, is also a practicing neurosurgeon in Atlanta and a member of the faculty of the Emory University School of Medicine. The surgeon general oversees some 6,000 officers in the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service. Gupta would bring to the post an unparalleled background as a communicator, having won widespread public recognition and a number of journalistic awards in recent years.

JULIUS RICHMOND, 91 Former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Julius Richmond, the U.S. surgeon general in the Carter administration who issued a report labeling cigarette smoking "slow-motion suicide," has died. Dr. Richmond, who was the first director of Head Start, died Sunday at his Boston-area home, said a spokeswoman for Harvard University, where Dr. Richmond was professor emeritus. In 1979, Dr. Richmond presented his Surgeon's General's Report on smoking, a follow-up to the 1964 report by an earlier surgeon general that led to warnings on cigarette packs.

When it comes to health and fitness, the magic pill may not be a pill at all. It may be something much harder to swallow. Many U.S. health professionals are adopting the decades-old directive of a Japanese researcher who said adults need to go for a long walk - 10,000 steps - nearly every day of the week. Children and people aiming to lose weight need more steps, and seniors need fewer. Other factors, such as medical conditions, also complicate the generic one-size-fits-all approach. But it's tough to find someone in the health arena who doesn't think more walking would benefit a lot of hearts, bones, muscles and even psyches.

The florid face, the heaving gut, that terrible wheezing he makes just getting out of the sleigh and landing with a thud on your roof like a pallet of cinder blocks. Let's not even get into blood pressure issues, cholesterol levels and body mass index. "A heart attack in a red flannel suit" - that's what they whisper at the doctor's office when he shows up for his annual physical. The question is this: Should Santa Claus be hitting the StairMaster? Is it time for the big guy to sign up for NutriSystem, join a gym, slim down, tone up and try to fit into those Dockers with the 36-inch waist again?

Richard Nixon was a crook. He was also a liar and anti-Semite who sought to subvert the Constitution. I wish he was president again. I'd also take Jimmy Carter, widely perceived as being about as effectual as Elmer Fudd, or Bill Clinton, fastest zipper in the West. Flawed men, yes, but say this much for them: When it came to a choice between people and party, between the public and the politics, there was at least a bare chance they would put the people, the public, first. No such chance exists with the current occupant of the mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue.

WASHINGTON -- Speaking days after the last surgeon general told Congress that he had been muzzled by the White House, President Bush's new nominee for the post told senators yesterday that he would quit before he let politics interfere with science. Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., a Kentucky cardiologist, also sought to distance himself from a 16-year-old church paper in which he characterized gay sex as abnormal and unhealthy. "I can only say that I have a deep, deep appreciation for the essential humanity of everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances or their sexual orientation," Holsinger, 68, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

As the latest nominee for surgeon general prepares to face a Senate committee today, it's hard to know which is in worse condition: Dr. James Holsinger's prospects for confirmation or the future of the job itself. Dr. Holsinger arrives with the baggage of some controversial positions on homosexuality and stem cell research that have alienated interest groups on the left and the right. And he's coming days after his predecessor, Richard H. Carmona, gave Congress an outraged account of how the Bush White House muzzled his views on such critical issues as mental health and secondhand smoke, forcing him instead to address medical topics from a politically censored script.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's first surgeon general testified yesterday that his speeches were censored to match administration political positions and that he was prevented from giving the public accurate scientific information on issues such as stem cell research and teen pregnancy prevention. "Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," said Dr. Richard H. Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, to a House committee.

It's apparently time for another pointless debate over who should be surgeon general of the United States. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed M. Joycelyn Elders, who famously called for schools to teach young people how to masturbate. Now President Bush has tapped James W. Holsinger Jr., a surgeon and cardiologist from Kentucky, for the position. Dr. Holsinger evidently has some antediluvian views on homosexuality, which makes his fitness for office questionable, to say the least, and the usual suspects are preparing to do battle whether or not he should be confirmed.