E-mails show Surgeon-General pressured: Kennedy

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E-mails show Surgeon-General pressured: Kennedy

Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:35PM EDT

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - E-mails from the White House demonstrate clear

political pressure on former Surgeon-General Dr. Carmona and suggest

that

other federal health agencies felt similar pressure, Massachusetts Senator

Kennedy said on Thursday.

Kennedy, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and

Pensions Committee, wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt

asking for copies of any correspondence between political appointees at HHS and

the Surgeon-General's office.

He also asked for more information about possible political pressure on

employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National

Institutes of Health.

Kennedy made public several e-mails that he said were evidence that Carmona

was indeed pressured, as the former surgeon general testified to Congress last

July.

" For example, in an April 14, 2003 email to Regina Schofield (then Director

of Intergovernmental Affairs at HHS), Turenne, then Consultant to the

Secretary, writes that Surgeon General Carmona 'needs to be the SG with

specific speeches, to specific audiences, on specific topics addressing the

Secretary's and the President's agenda -- which will become more political as

the

re-elect gets underway', " Kennedy wrote in his letter to Leavitt.

" Schofield responds later that day that officials in the Secretary's office

are 'hammering (Surgeon General Carmona) everyday.' "

" Other documents reveal that the White House was directly involved in efforts

to politicize the Surgeon General's office, " Kennedy continues -- including

pushing Carmona to attend a Republican Party fund-raiser.

" In light of these events, I ask that your Department provide to my office

information and documents concerning certain political appointees' interaction

with NIH and CDC, " Kennedy wrote.

He said he had information showing that HHS officials had said the Bush

administration planned to " censor, edit, or otherwise control statements by NIH

scientists and researchers to ensure that those statements hewed to

Administration ideology. "

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he was not aware of any intent to

censor or edit NIH statements and said he would not comment on e-mail requests.

The Bush White House has long been accused by scientists, members of

Congress, activist groups and others of stacking committees and editing

scientific

statements to reflect a conservative, anti-abortion ideology.

Carmona, who left office in 2006, said he was ordered to say Bush's name

three times in every page when making speeches and said he has told not to speak

out about certain types of controversial research, including stem cell

research.

" If Dr. Carmona had concerns, he had an obligation to raise them when he was

in the job, " Fratto said.

_http://www.fdrcinc.org/surgeon.html_ (http://www.fdrcinc.org/surgeon.html)

Sharon

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