RIP Dr. Koop

Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople

Sweet Jane
C. Everet Koop, MD died today. He was probably the greatest surgeon general in American history. I fondly remember the heroic work that he did during the Reagan administration to fight for AIDS education and research and his advocacy of using condoms and sex education to help prevent these preventable death. There wasn't a day during his tenure that ideologues within the Republican party tried to get Koop fired for his apostasy but Koop not only continued to speak out about AIDS he defied the Reagan administration and sent out 100 million pamphlets on AIDS awareness when he had been told specifically not too. Dr. Koop kept the public advocacy up until finally, after far to long, the Reagan administration finally recognized AIDS for the epidemic it was and brought the full resources of the Federal government to bear to fight the spread of this horrible disease.....and Dr. Koop bears a lot of the credit for that.

RIP Dr. Koop and God Speed. You had an amazing career, full of deeds, full of honors.
 
Interestingly enough he faced a ton of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians when he was nominated because of his conservative views and being strongly against abortion.
 
cawacko said:
Interestingly enough he faced a ton of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians when he was nominated because of his conservative views and being strongly against abortion.
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He was opposed, but he did end up being very fair in his job. I respected the way he kept his personal views of homosexuality out of the mix, and focused on the medical aspect of his job.
 
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Rana said:
He was opposed, but he I'd end up being very fair in his job. I respected the way he kept his personal views of homosexuality out of the mix, and focused on the medical aspect of his job.
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What were his personal views of homosexuality?
 
cawacko said:
Interestingly enough he faced a ton of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians when he was nominated because of his conservative views and being strongly against abortion.
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As well as his evengelical religious views but he told the Senate Committee that if confirmed he would keep in personal views private and he was true to his word. I think Dr. Koop did more than anyone to inform the American public that tobacco/nicotene was a damned dangerous drug that killed. His public campaign against tobacco use probably saved hundreds of thousand, if not millions of lives.
 
Rana said:
He was opposed, but he I'd end up being very fair in his job. I respected the way he kept his personal views of homosexuality out of the mix, and focused on the medical aspect of his job.
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Agreed. Our government and both parties could learn a lot from Dr. Koops example.
 
I only agreed with about half of his politics, but had a lot of respect for that man. A true American hero. Our govenmernt officals could learn a lot from him.
 
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