As President Obama is looking for ways to improve the quality and financial aspects of medicine in the United States, he has now nominated Dr. Regina Benjamin for the job of Surgeon General of the United States. Dr. Benjamin is a rural physician from Alabama. She first came onto the national scene when her clinic in Bayou la Batre, Alabama, was first destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and then burned down after being rebuilt. She is a recipient of the 2008 MacArthur Foundation’s so-called “genious grant”, a half-million dollar grant given to people who make a difference in the world. There is no doubt that Dr. Benjamin has the know-how and will have the resources to take action on all sorts of health issues in the country. The question is how much cooperation we, the public, and we, the public health professionals, can give her.
Losing weight as a nation should be our Manhattan Project, something we can all rally behind and contribute to. Drop the rate of obesity and we drop the rates of heart disease, diabetes, and maybe even cancer. Get smokers to quit and the rates of lung disease (and the loss of productivity) drop dramatically. Help drug users get clean, and we get rid of crime. Teach effective sexual health, and there will be less unwanted pregnancies (in turn, less abortions, less sexually transmitted diseases). The list goes on and on…
Dr. Benjamin and others in leadership positions in Public Health will need all the help they can get from the American public and those of us in Public Health. After all, you can take the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink… Unless you trick it into losing weight.
I dunno….does anyone else see a problem here? Should the Surgeon General be a role model for a healthy lifestyle? What if she was a smoker? Am I just being too nitpicky?
What do you think? So many questions.
“Manhattan Project”
WTF? The Surgeon General is now developing a biological WMD?
“What do you think?”
Has the health of American’s gotten better or worse since the creation of the Department of Health and Human Services and the billions spent by the agency?
She will fit right in with Obama’s Chief Science Adviser John P. Holdren.
Holdren authored ECOSCIENCE: POPULATION, RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT. In the book he promotes:
– Forcibly and unknowingly sterilizing the entire population by adding infertility drugs to the nation’s water and food supply.
– Legalizing “compulsory abortions,” ie forced abortions carried out against the will of the pregnant women, as is common place in Communist China where women who have already had one child and refuse to abort the second are kidnapped off the street by the authorities before a procedure is carried out to forcibly abort the baby.
– Babies who are born out of wedlock or to teenage mothers to be forcibly taken away from their mother by the government and put up for adoption. Another proposed measure would force single mothers to demonstrate to the government that they can care for the child, effectively introducing licensing to have children.
– Implementing a system of “involuntary birth control,” where both men and women would be mandated to have an infertility device implanted into their body at puberty and only have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.
– Permanently sterilizing people who the authorities deem have already had too many children or who have contributed to “general social deterioration”.
– Formally passing a law that criminalizes having more than two children, similar to the one child policy in Communist China.
– This would all be overseen by a transnational and centralized “planetary regime” that would utilize a “global police force” to enforce the measures outlined above. The “planetary regime” would also have the power to determine population levels for every country in the world.
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34198
I don’t have problem with personal fitness of SG. It is personal and private choice.
What I do have problem with is appointing as SG people who are politically active (she is on boards or tops of various associations and societies) while professionally a nil (she has no scientific or clinical innovations or achievements).
Her work also points to a typical socialized medicine. It is nice that she treats people who can’t pay. But, that comes at the cost of lack of professional excellence, new discoveries and advancements.
3 Stars & Bars
So, you’re quoting a book that’s over 30 years old. I wonder if people ever change their minds / ways over such a short period of time…
I don’t see an issue. Of course I don’t think the surgeon general matters, the job is to spin policy and justify what ever BS the administration has been paid to promote not make suggestions based on facts.
4 dusanmal
“It is nice that she treats people who can’t pay. But, that comes at the cost of lack of professional excellence, new discoveries and advancements.”
Wow. Citation needed indeed!
#5 – It is extremely unusual for a person to change basic, extremist deeply held beliefs. In a case such as mentioned it would be incumbent upon the person to prove he/she changed. For instance I would NEVER vote for someone who was a KKK leader and member. Some people would though…
I’ve just always gotten a kick out of calling somebody who will be an admiral “general.”
Should the Surgeon General be a role model for a healthy lifestyle? /// Yes.
What if she was a smoker? /// Another failure as a role model.
Am I just being too nitpicky? /// No. All the factors of a relevant effective SG should be identified, evaluated, and judged.
What do you think? /// I think the SG is basically a meaningless shill for the President. What do you think?
So many questions. /// No, not really. Just a mouthpiece.
VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
#10, “I think the SG is basically a meaningless shill for the President. What do you think?”
Aren’t all political appointees?
8 Paddy-0,
So, Bush is indeed a hate filled alcoholic drug abuser. And he never changed.
Good to know!
So does it automatically disqualify her if she can’t fit into the uniform?
#11–SL==thanks for disagreeing with me. Gives me a nanosecond to think. – – – – – No. Political Appointee’s are “supposed” to act independently to perform the duties of their office once selected. Note the constant commentary about Eric Holder supposedly reviewing criminal charges against President Cheney while Obama has stated he wants to look to the future. Its a matter of indididual conscious==whether a person serves the President or serves the people of the USA. “Traditionally” certain offices act very much as employees of the President (eg–the SG) while other traditionally act with more independence once selected (eg–members of the Supreme Court, with the exception of the Bush Appointees, Republican Scum every one of them)(eg–the Attorney General independent law enforcer of the USA).
#14, The President is the one who is responsible for ensuring the laws are enforced/executed, the Attorney General is delegated the executive’s enforcement power because, as with the reason for all cabinet appointees, the President can’t do everything by himself. Just because you want the AG to be “independent” of the President, doesn’t mean he necessarily is.
# 12 Named said, “So, Bush is indeed a hate filled alcoholic drug abuser.”
I don’t know. Have any books or writings from him that say that?
On the subject of Obesity, those who can’t… I really wouldn’t say anything about her weight if she wasn’t putting obesity on par with World War II. You can’t end obesity without violating people’s civil rights.
Is it a given that because she isn’t skinny that she isn’t fit? I don’t believe that it is. The fact is that genetics does play a large part when it comes to body type, hence the adage that “if you want to know what she’ll look like in twenty years, look at her mom.”
Farmers know that when you breed stocky animals, stocky animals are what you get. People are animals.
16,
Lots of them. And documentaries. And what he said about himself before he found “god”.
#15–SL==you so readily demonstrate why humans organize into pyramidal structures and follow leaders no matter how wrong they are. Its inbred, our species plays follow the leader with our noses straight up the next guys ass.
Its why all political systems are corrupt.
Even if it is true that the AG’s duties are delegated, that doesn’t even mean they are subservient. Thats what forms the core of our two party thinking, “with us or against us”, and why we are corrupt and losing this country.
The need for independent leadership begins with the need for independent voters. YOU being among the best and the brightest, show what a dismal future we all have.
# 19 Named said, “Lots of them.”
Cool, cite just one writing from Bush where he says he is a racist.
Just another obama hypocrite that will come out and “preach” about the need to eat healthy and lose weight. I bet this fat ass bitch will murder a bucket of chicken…
21 Paddy-0
Did I say racist? No, I didn’t. But, good try at deflecting. And that’s why you’re a Paddy-ZERO!
ROFLMFAO!!!!!!!!
# 23 Named said, “Did I say racist? ”
Sorry, I meant hate filled. Waiting.
24 – Paddy-0
Just to clarify, you’re cool with him being an alcoholic drug abuser right? All you want is: “Sorry, I meant hate filled”
If so, watch this. Might be easier for you to comprehend. Especially the part about him being a mean, hateful drunk.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2008/bushyears/
#20, I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying that is how it is. The power ultimately still rests in the hands of the President. So if the President decides his AG shouldn’t be prodding around in certain areas, then that is what happens.
So if the AG thinks thing are smelling a little too much like a pile of shit, he can roll over, state his objections known and influence a policy shift, resign, or “leak” the goods to the press so maybe Congress can jump in and see whether we need some impeachment action.
Well done. Trying to keep the train wreck on the track pointed to a coherent thought. And Patrick–you strayed all over the path very loosey goosey but you were honest enough to recognize it when pointed out to you. Years of practice may get you to avoid such errors all on your own.
BUT–born again Christians. What gives?
Are they “attracted” to the light, or really running from something else? Running from drugs, addiction, daddy issues, dereliction of duty, dare we say “hate” for his fellow man?
I think I first saw it when he smiled and laughed when pointing out that Texas executed more criminals than any other state. One can argue the merits of capital punishment, but smile about it?
He doesn’t do drugs because he is born again and resists what he loves. He is a compassionate conservative because he is born again and embraces what he hates.
Reformed coke addicts are like that.
The modern attorney-general is a hybrid member of the government in that he is the government’s legal adviser and representative, but also has historic functions relating to the administration of the law. In these cases he is required to be non-political.
from: http://answers.com/topic/attorney-general
Is the MacArthur Foundation “genious” grant similar to the Darwin Foundation “moran” award?
The surgeon general is a cheerleader and spokes person with no real power.
They pretty much act as the mascot/spokes person for the government and the AMA.
The selection should be made on that bases.