Word: koop
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...name it, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has an opinion, which he will give you with great certainty at high speed. There has never been a Surgeon General like him, not even Luther Terry, who slapped warnings on cigarette packs 24 years ago. It's a fair guess that Terry was never air-kissed by Elizabeth Taylor, the butt of jokes in Johnny Carson's monologue, was never a visitor to the set of Golden Girls, and never lectured Hollywood producers about showing safe sex in their programs. Antismoking is a small part of Koop's crusade; AIDS, child abuse...
...13th Surgeon General, whose second term runs through the end of the year, almost never got a chance to don a uniform. When Koop, a retired pediatric surgeon, and his wife Betty moved to Georgetown in early 1981 to await his confirmation, they became proof of the old saw that if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. The process, expected to take a few days, turned into nine nightmarish months of name-calling and personal attacks, as liberals stalled his confirmation. He was called a right-wing crank, a prolife nut, a religious zealot, inexperienced, Dr. Unqualified...
Accustomed to the godlike treatment accorded surgeons, Koop was stunned by the viciousness of Washington, which has neither gods nor heroes. Every day he would go to his temporary office on the seventh floor at the Department of Health and Human Services. Every day the phone wouldn't ring. His wife, uprooted from Philadelphia, waited in their small sublet wondering whether to unpack. One day Koop returned to find tears rolling down her face, a critical newspaper article on her lap. He considered leaving, but Betty persuaded him to stay. The two had been through a lot -- long years...
...Koop was expected to be a figurehead like most Surgeons General, with little authority and few staff or duties, but he quickly shook things up. He insisted that the commissioned corps of public-health officers wear uniforms. Then the 6-ft. 1-in., 210-lb. doctor, whose taste for red meat and martinis keeps him from losing his paunch, pronounced the U.S. a country of fatsoes who would have to give up cholesterol in favor of fiber. When Koop found out that the tobacco companies had fought hardest over the years against the Government's calling nicotine addictive, he stated...
...Koop said he is unsure about his future plans but added, "One thing is sure--you'll be hearing the same kinds of messages from...