The Next Surgeon General

I read this interesting blurb about how Barack Obama has chosen CNN celebrity Dr. Sanjay Gupta as the next US Surgeon General. There is a petition going around to get someone else elected - Dr. George Lundberg. I won't post the whole petition but please compare two (albeit biased) blurbs about each doctor's credentials which are both humourous and sad:

Dr George Lundberg not only is a consummate public health scientist who knows public health issues, he strongly embraces the above three priorities in words and deeds (1. getting insurance for all Americans 2. decreasing unnecessary and expensive medical tests 3. Rebuilding public trust in the FDA, CDC, etc). As Editor- in-Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association’s journal, commonly known as JAMA, between 1982-1999, the most widely read medical journal in the world, Dr. Lundberg earned the respect of a worldwide readership of JAMA. In 1999 he then went onto become(until January 30, 2009) Editor-in-Chief of MEDSCAPE, the leading source of online health information and education for physicians thus establishing himself as genuine pioneer in e-medicine work a trend he recognized very early and began at the AMA. He was dubbed “Online HealthCare’s Medicine Man” by The Industry Standard. He excels in both professional and patient medical education.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, conversely , trained in neurosurgery,-named in 2003 as one of the sexiest men in America-,shows little to no evidence of embacing the three fundamental priorities outlined above in this petition. Quite to the contrary Dr. Gupta has been a voice for the status quo in our very broken, profiteering based, bloated, bio-medical complex. One medical journalist described Gupta’s reporting as an “unquestioning –almost cheerleading approach to health news” most often reporting on the “the issue, or worse, the breakthrough of the day”. Gupta’s ties to the pharmacutical industry and medical testing industry need to be further investigated in his vetting process. We the signers of this petition demand this. And Gupta’s on–air attack of Michael Moore’s data contained in Moore’s movie Sicko requiring formal retraction by CNN and duly noted by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman of The New York Times was a disgrace (I remember this...sooo awkward).

When I looked up Dr. Lundberg on Wikipedia, this is what it had to say:

One month before joining Medscape Lundberg was dramatically fired from JAMA by E. Ratcliffe Anderson, who was then executive vice president of the AMA over a research study report from the Kinsey Institute that Lundberg had selected for publication. The JAMA article reported, among other things, that 60% of college students surveyed in 1991 considered "oral sex" as not "having sex," which Anderson said was "inappropriately and inexcusably" timed to influence the debate over the Impeachment of Bill Clinton and "to extract political leverage." Lundberg subsequently successfully sued the AMA and was awarded an undisclosed settlement.

****UPDATE****

Dr. Gupta has apparently withdrawn his name as a candidate. Whatever. The comparison between the two doctors is still pretty funny.