Surgeon General Satcher Exits

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Surgeon General Satcher Exits
By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - For four years as surgeon general, David Satcher has walked a fine line between science and politics. He likes to stick to the science, but he knows that with issues like sex and drugs on the agenda, politics is never far behind.

He's praised programs that give drug addicts clean needles to shoot up. He's said there's no evidence that teaching teens sexual abstinence by itself is effective. He's said Americans should learn to accept gays and lesbians for who they are.

If the science is clear, he says, that's enough for him. And when the White House spokesman denounced his report on sexual health, he figured that just comes with the territory.

``The surgeon general has to be prepared to be beat up from the podium of the White House,'' said Satcher, whose four-year term ends next week.

He leaves with a thorough understanding of where science ends and politics begins.

``When you say drug addiction is a medical problem, the public health science is overwhelming,'' he said in an interview this week. ``Does that mean the Congress is going to act that way when it passes legislation? People are much more comfortable putting drug addicts in jail, in prison, than they are in funding programs for treatment.''

It's easy to be honest, he says, when the science is clear. It's much harder when it isn't. After Americans began getting sick with anthrax, there were more questions than answers.

Satcher sees his role as communicating established scientific information, so he figured he should lay low when anthrax-laden letters were found, given the lack of solid facts. But with misinformation swirling and people panicking, it became clear that he needed to start talking, he said.

``When it was obvious there was confusion and there was concern, I felt it was appropriate that the American people hear from the surgeon general, even if it was only to say what I often said, which is we're all learning together,'' he said.

His role was essential, providing some of the ``only clear messages we got,'' said Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general under President Reagan. Politicians, Koop said, ``were saying we have everything in hand,'' while Satcher told people that much was unknown.

``All you've got to be with the public is honest,'' he said.

Overall, Koop concludes, Satcher was effective by simply talking straight. ``He didn't do it in a radical way. He doesn't rant and rave from a pulpit,'' he said. ``He just says what needs to be fixed.''

Satcher's rise to the post sometimes called ``America's family doctor'' began on a farm in Anniston, Ala., in a home with parents who didn't finish school and had little money. With far from adequate health services, he almost died of whooping cough at age 2.

In college, he led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, and went to jail five or six times. In medical school, he was often the only black face.

Now 60, Satcher plans to spend the next six months as a senior visiting fellow for the Kaiser Family Foundation, writing a book about his experiences as surgeon general. Then he's returning to Atlanta, where he was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) before becoming surgeon general. He'll direct a new National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine.

It's no surprise that Satcher handled dicey topics in a post that has been a magnet for controversy. In the 1960s, it was radical to suggest that smoking causes cancer. In 1980s, it was bold to talk frankly about AIDS (news - web sites).

The position had been vacant for three years when Satcher took office. His predecessor, Joycelyn Elders, was fired after she suggested that teaching teens about masturbation made sense.

Just two months into Satcher's term, President Clinton (news - web sites) decided to bar federal funding for needle exchange programs, which give addicts clean needles for dirty ones in hopes of stemming the spread of HIV (news - web sites), the virus that causes AIDS. Research found that needle exchange programs do not increase drug use, but Clinton decided that they send the wrong message.

Satcher served as assistant secretary for health as well as surgeon general, meaning he was caught between supporting his team's decision and speaking frankly about what the science showed. On the day Clinton's decision was announced, he ducked a question about his personal feelings.

It made it difficult for him to truly be independent, he said.

``I hope that ... the American people will (always) be able to say the surgeon general does not speak for the administration,'' he said. ``Is that comfortable when your budget comes from the administration? No, it's not.''

Sex and drugs generate headlines, Satcher said. But he believes some of his most rewarding work involved mental health and suicide prevention.

``I didn't realize there were so many people out there hurting because somewhere along the way they lost a loved one to suicide and they've been walking around blaming themselves, saying what did I do wrong, why didn't he or she love me enough to want to live,'' he said.

One of the most gratifying experiences, he said, was being able to tell people that most suicide victims were suffering from mental illness of some sort and ``you're not responsible.''

``When you're really connecting to people with something that means something to them, that's what I've really felt as surgeon general.''

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