White House blocked surgeon general's report: report Sun Jul 29, 3:41 AM ET
A Republican political appointee with close White House ties has blocked a 2006 report by the US surgeon general that called for action to tackle global health problems because the document did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
Citing current and former public health officials, the newspaper said the report described the link between poverty and poor health and urged the US government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy.
Three people directly involved in the report's preparation said its publication was blocked by William Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, the report said.
Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services since 2001.
Richard Carmona, who served 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, the paper reported.
Carmona told lawmakers that, as he fought to release the document, he was "called in and again admonished ... via a senior official who said, 'You don't get it,'" according to The Post.
He said a senior official told him that "this will be a political document, or it will not be released."
After a long struggle, Carmona refused to make the requested changes, the paper said. A few days before the end of his term as the nation's senior medical officer, he was abruptly told he would not be reappointed. |
