Privacy Digest

White House Is Accused of Putting Politics Over Science: WASHINGTON, July 10 -- Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional committee today that top officials in the Bush administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

Dr. Carmona, who served as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, said White House officials would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues because of political concerns. Top administration officials delayed for years and attempted to "water down" a landmark report on secondhand tobacco smoke, he said in sworn testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of every speech he gave, Dr. Carmona said. He was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, he said.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization's longtime ties to the Kennedy family.

"I was specifically told by a senior person, 'Why would you want to help those people?' " Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation's premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people.

Dr. Carmona joins a list of present and former Bush administration officials who assert that politics often trumped science within what had previously been nonpartisan government health and scientific agencies.

His testimony comes two days before the Senate confirmation hearings of his designated successor, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., who was nominated this year by President Bush. Two members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions have already declared their opposition to Dr. Holsinger's nomination because of a 1991 report he wrote that concluded that homosexual sex is unnatural and unhealthy. Dr. Carmona's testimony may further complicate Dr. Holsinger's nomination.

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the Bush administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona's statements about political pressure. "It has always been this administration's position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science," Mr. Hall said.

But Representative Henry A. Waxman, the chairman of the House oversight committee, sharply criticized the Bush administration, saying it was putting politics above health issues.>

(Read Original Article - Via NYT > Health.)