[Vision2020] Our M.I.A. Surgeon General

[Art Deco]

[image: Opinionator - A Gathering of Opinion From Around the
Web]<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/>
February 20, 2013, 9:14 pmOur M.I.A. Surgeon GeneralBy MARK
BITTMAN<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mark-bittman/>

When CBS airs its newly commissioned pilot "The Surgeon
General<http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/awakes-jason-isaacs-star-cbs-surgeon-general-421642>,"
Dr. John Sherman - "the most powerful doctor in the nation" - will become
the best-known (albeit fictional) surgeon general since C. Everett Koop. No
one I asked (including a member of Congress) could name the current one.

She's Regina Benjamin - and no, I didn't know, either. In theory, the
surgeon general is the nation's doctor, an independent practitioner whose
major concern is our health. In reality, the position has been eviscerated,
and you need not take my word for that.

Six years ago, three former surgeons general - Richard Carmona (who served
under the second President Bush), David Satcher (who spanned the
Clinton-Bush years), and Koop (who was appointed by Ronald Reagan) -
appeared<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/washington/11surgeon.html?pagewanted=all>before
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and declared, in
Carmona's words, that the scientific information that they wanted to bring
to the American people was being vetted and censored for political reasons,
and that he was "often instructed on what to say and not to say."

"We felt," Carmona told me last week, "that science was being politicized.
And if the surgeon general is not empowered to state the nonpartisan case
based on the best science, then who will?"

Good question. Because it's the surgeon general's job - or should be - to
evaluate science and present a considered, impartial recommendation.
(Carmona thinks a "State of the Nation's Health" should be a required
annual report, like the State of the Union.) Lacking that, there is no
official and identifiable spokesperson for the nation's public health, and
the obfuscation and confusion sown by Big Food, along with its outright
lies and lobbying might, has created a situation in which no one in power
will speak the truth: that our diet is making us sick, causing millions of
premature deaths each year and driving health care costs through the roof.

One would think these might be areas of concern for the nation's doctor.
(And, of course, for the evidently gutless Food and Drug Administration.
But that's another story.)

Rarely, surgeons general have risen to the occasion. In 1957, Leroy E.
Burney announced that there was a causal relationship between smoking and
lung cancer. In 1964 his successor, Luther L. Terry, published the
critically important
report<http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/NN/p-nid/60>that
gave the anti-tobacco movement the power it needed to save countless
tens of millions of lives in the half-century since then. Koop -
inexplicably and wonderfully backed by Reagan - brought the truth about
AIDS into the light of day, mailing information about the syndrome to every
household in the country.

But since his term ended, the best-known surgeon general has been Joycelyn
Elders, who held office for about a year (1993-4) before being fired for
suggesting that masturbation be taught in order to help young people
refrain from unsafe sex. Carmona took flak for his positions in favor of
abortion rights and was "told to stand down" when he wanted to take a
scientific approach to stem-cell research.

Those are the recent exceptions. Benjamin, like most of her predecessors,
is virtually invisible. Whether that is a personality trait, a lack of
courage (hard to believe - she's a Catholic who supports abortion rights),
a lack of qualification or a sign of the impotence of her office is
something she won't help us figure out: her representative declined my
request for an interview.

But her most public work, the 2010 document called "The Surgeon General's
Vision for a Healthy and Fit
Nation<http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/initiatives/healthy-fit-nation/index.html>,"
has a decidedly mild Michelle Obama-ish tone. In discussing the obesity
crisis, it lays the blame squarely at the feet of ... the victims: "In
addition to consuming too many calories and not getting enough physical
activity, genes, metabolism, behavior, environment, and culture can also
play a role in causing people to be overweight and obese."

Put aside the imprecise, non-grammatical writing. Instead of talk about
curbing the marketing of junk to children, we get a discussion of "limiting
television viewing"; instead of banning soda from schools, we get "Make
sure water is available throughout the school setting." In short, instead
of criticizing the industry for peddling and profiting from poison, it
criticizes us for falling prey to it.

The data linking excess refined sugar in food (especially in
sugar-sweetened beverages) and disease is strong, and no one outside of the
industry or its sphere of influence disputes it. More data is being
produced all the time, and we all hear about it from a variety of sources.

A strong statement by America's doctor decrying this, and calling for
control of what amounts to a controllable substance, might assure Regina
Benjamin of a place in history equal to those of Burney, Terry and Koop. It
might even make her as famous as John Sherman. It would certainly help
people remember her name.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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