From The Washington Post:
A surgeon general’s report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration’s policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate.
….
Richard H. Carmona, who commissioned the “Call to Action on Global Health” while serving as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, recently cited its suppression as an example of the Bush administration’s frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist.
But whether American tax dollars should be used “to help tackle global health problems” is not a scientific question, it is a political question. Whether “to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy” is a political, not a scientific, question. And asking “corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate” is a political request, not a scientific one.
Clearly, the writers at The Washington Post (and other similarly misguided liberals) don’t understand what are scientific questions and what are political or policy questions. It looks like the former surgeon general isn’t very clear on the concept either. Good thing a man with such a basic misunderstanding was not reappointed. Or maybe these are just more in the long, unending stream of disingenuous, partisan hits from the president’s ideological enemies. We report, you decide.
The Unalienable Right 