Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Shades of Lysenko

''President Bush's first surgeon general testified Tuesday 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," Dr. Richard Carmona, who was surgeon general from2002 to 2006, told a congressional committee. "The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation -- not the doctor of a political party."

Addendum:
It did just occur to me that President Clinton actually fired Jocelyn Elders as Surgeon General for suggesting that public schools teach children about masturbation. And I think the guy after her was told to tone down any content about sex in his reports after Monicagate. So Bush isn't the first one to pressure the Surgeon General. I did like this: "Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches." Anyway, yes, the other team did the same thing. Of course, I personally spent eight years arguing that the Clintons were dishonest, immoral, worthless politicos, and have basically argued the same about the current administration. So, points for me all around.

2 comments:

Holly said...

ha. Ironically, I just put a link to that in your post last post about how you promised you'd stop after that one. By the way, that particular SG was probably not doing good research, some of the things he DID publish were specious, even downhill with a tailwind. But... still.

Rufus said...

That's what seemed worse about it somehow- not even the aparatchik is enough of an aparatchik for the party.