Howard Dean for Surgeon General?

[dorktv]

Someone brought this up on the WaPo and while I have no idea if he would be eligible for it but based on his views of drug addiction, it would be a great start to slowly wean the US away from being all about the drug war.

Which is claiming dozens of lives at the southern border I might add.

[PBS Poll-435]

1. Nah. Cabinet-Level HHS

The first step in fixing our health-care crisis.

[Uzybone]

2. HHS Secetary for Dean I hope

he will be great there.

[dorktv]

3. I thought the same thing at first but really-he should be SG because

a person who understands addiction is a disease would be so helpful.

Perhaps it is selfish of me to want to save lives at the border but the drug wars help no one and harm so many.

[cali]

8. uh, no. Dean has no expertise in addictions at all. His expertise

is delivering healthcare. Under Dean in Vermont,almost all children were covered, prevention programs were developed, and the adult population coverage increased. He's managed large organizations successfully- the state of Vermont and the DNC and he's been a family care physician.

He'd be utterly wasted as Surgeon General and I doubt he'd be at all interested in the position.

[mucifer]

4. I want Dr Quentin Young! Chicago activist for universal health care and Studs Terkel's doctor.

Hell he kept Studs alive for 96 years and was a great regular contributor to NPR and a great leftist.

QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D. (National Coordinator) Dr. Young is a practicing internist in Hyde Park, a Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Illinois Medical Center and Senior Attending Physician at Michael Reese Hospital. He graduated Northwestern Medical School and did his residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. During the 1970s and early 1980s, he served as Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at Cook County, where he helped establish the Department of Occupational Medicine. He has also been an American Medical Association member since 1952.

In addition to his distinguished career as a physician, Dr. Young has been a leader in public health policy and medical and social justice issues. In 1998, he had the special distinction of serving as President of the American Public Health Association and in 1997 was inducted as a Master of the American College of Physicians. In 1980, Dr.Young founded the Chicago based Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, of which he is currently Chairman. Dr. Young is also the National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), a Chicago based organization of more than 10,000 physicians who support single payer national health insurance.

He has served as Chairman of the American College of Physicians' Subcommittee on Human Rights and Medical Practice and has been a member of both the Humana-Michael Reese Medical Board and the American College of Physicians Health and Public Policy Committee. He is featured as an expert guest on WBEZ, Chicago public radio. Dr. Young has chosen to limit his medical practice in order to spend more time fighting the corporate takeover of medicine in America.

http://www.pnhp.org/freshair/young_bio.php

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I would guess that P/E Obama and Rahm Emanuel are aware fo him. Their paths MUST have crossed.

[Recursion]

6. Surgeon General requires some very specific training...

...that a GP like Dean doesn't have (SG is almost entirely a public health role, which is as specialized as brain surgery)

[kath]

7. The War on Some People with Some Drugs is killing THOUSANDS in Mexico

each year.

Great article in this week's Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24012731/the_war_next_door
(the link contains only part of the article. Full article is in the Nov 13 edition of RS (sometimes the full articles become available on the website later)

excerpt:

In the United States, the War on Drugs is a political slogan for a policy disaster that has cost taxpayers at least $500 billion over the past 35 years. In Mexico, it is a brutal and bewildering conflict — a multisided civil war that has taken 3,000 lives this year alone and brought the federal government to a state of near-collapse. Narcotics are now one of the largest sectors of the Mexican economy, twice the size of tourism. Most of the country's drug trade involves transporting contraband from other sources — especially cocaine from Colombia — to satisfy the nearly insatiable demand in the U.S. But Mexico's narcotraficante cartels have also gotten into the production side of the industry, manufacturing 80 percent of the crystal meth sold in America, 14 percent of the heroin and most of the marijuana. What Mexico offers the global narcotics industry is proximity to the largest market on earth.


RS also had an article on the WOSPWSD last year. I haven't read it yet, but looks good: How America Lost the War on Drugs
After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17438347/how_america_lost_the_war_on_drugs

[AZBlue]

9. Head of FDA.

Let him deal with those pharma companies and they'll be begging for mercy.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Howard-Dean-MD-would-by-Stephen-Fox-081109-258.html