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In Defense of the Sanjay Gupta Appointment

Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake at 3:44 AM on January 9, 2009.


I understand the critiques launched by Paul Krugman, John Conyers and others -- but I think Gupta is an inspired choice.
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I understand the critiques launched by Paul Krugman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and others against Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- he did accuse Michael Moore of "fudging the facts" in Sicko when Moore had done no such thing. But in the end he apologized and admitted he was wrong, which is a lot more than is frequently forthcoming in these situations.

 

I actually think Gupta is an inspired choice. This morning in Politico, they note that Tom Daschle may use Gupta in a grassroots campaign to sell the Obama health care plan to the public. Gupta is a known and trusted public personality, and this appointment gives him the official status to explain and defend the plan on the government's behalf. His familiar face will be a powerful antidote to any kind of well-funded "Harry and Louise" style campaign aimed at tanking it.

Sam Stein says, "Howard Dean, a doctor himself, noted that Gupta's responsibilities would be much the same as those in his current job: explaining medical issues of public concern in a manner that the public could understand."

I believe Gupta would perform that task really well and do a lot to redeem public health issues from the savaging they've received from the anti-science crowd for the past eight years. But if it does nothing more than help keep public opinion about the health care plan favorable long enough for it to pass, he'll be worth it.

Digg!

Tagged as: health, obama, howard dean, michael moore, paul krugman, daschle, sanjay gupta, john conyers, sam stein

Jane Hamsher is the founder of FireDogLake. Her work has also appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and the American Prospect.


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corporations have no business
Posted by: weathered on Jan 9, 2009 4:21 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
in the art & science of Medicine.

Where ever there is profit motivation there is compromised integrity.

Dr.Gupta lost sight of this indeliable consequence. CNN serves its corporate masters, not their audience, not at all. In fact they dis and misinform.
Dr. Gupta's media affiliation regrettably has compromised him too.

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Selling the plan
Posted by: PJT on Jan 9, 2009 4:45 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is positioning to launch the most important public health initiative since Medicare-- maybe the most important one ever. Besides serving as the operational chief of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the SG spends a lot of time speaking on public health issues. Since we know health care reform is going to encounter vicious opposition from all the interests, why not hire a consummate communicator to front the program? What is NOT to like about this choice, unless you are a Republican with millions of pharma bucks in your pockets? The typical objection from the left is the same here as on other appointments. Everybody seems to think that a combination of Joan Baez (who is sixty-seven today- go Joan!), Al Sharpton and Noam Chomsky would make the ideal cabinet member. They all have their strenghs, but, look at it this way: There is a reason why Barack got 56% and Kucinich got .0000001% of the vote.

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» RE: Selling the plan Posted by: MeyravLevine
» RE: Selling the plan Posted by: chorton
» RE: Selling the plan Posted by: weathered
» Barack Obama's Masters Posted by: Ray Duray
Isn't the surgeon general the one responsible for warning every person who buys a pack of smokes...
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Jan 9, 2009 6:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...that it will eventually kill them, miserably, and possibly at my expense if they are unable to fund their own medical care?

Has Gupta committed to shaking these people by the collars and/or a mandatory splash of cold water after every cancer stick, or threatened to cut off subsidizing (at the end stage) their stupid habits?

Ya know, I honestly wouldn't mind if adults decide to off themselves with cancer-sticks, drugs, or alcohol*, as long as I wasn't asked to support them.

*or hell, even bacon double cheeseburgers

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The fact he can speak to the public is the danger
Posted by: Globalgent on Jan 9, 2009 7:14 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Gupta is a stooge of Big Pharma. There is another Sanjay Gupta, a psychiatrist, who also has many finanical ties with pharma as well.. and should not be confused with the CNN Gupta.
Gupta has displayed little support for health freedom of choice, aand has shown himself consistently to be a defender of vaccines, SRIIs, and Big Pharma prescription medications.
IN defending SSRIs in expectant mothers (on 6/28/07) he gave classic Big Pharma defense responses to support Paxil and Zoloft -- shown to have resulted in skull and brain defects and GI disorders. For some reason, Gupta felt not taking the SSRIs when depressed was a greater risk than having a deformed child.

Remember folks... the classic Pharma response to adverse drug effects is most frequently: the benefits outweigh the risks. So, how does one determine that?

Check this one out:

On American Morning, 10/30/03 -- Gupta went so far to defend Vioxx for God/dess sakes!! REsponding to the fact that the drug caused 10s of 1000s of heartattacks and 10s of 1000s of deaths, Gupta said: "The numbers are very small. Perhaps a small percentage increase in the overall risk of heart attacks with Vioxx. They say 37 to 39 pecent but that's a very small number."
39% is a small number!!!!!!!??? Is about 60,000 dead due to Vioxx small?

He is also a huge supporter of Gardasil vaccine for HPV. Google Cindy Bevington's reporting on the Dartmouth Univ Med Prof, Diane Harris, who whistleblew the dreadful science and safety coverups in Merck's Gardasil trials which she was intimately involved with.

As the producer of the nations longest talk show on alternative health on public radio -- over 3 decades -- i am constantly speaking with physicians who have jumped ship into complementary medicine or who are real researchers at universities doing studies without corporate vested interests. in my opinion, Gupta's medical paradigm and thinking is 5-10 years behind where valid medical research tells us we should be.

With Gupta as Surgeon Gen... i recommend everyone to have their kids exempt from vaccination, so you as a parent have the freedom to decide what vaccines you want your child to have. Otherwise, they would be mandatory and the numbers of vaccines will continue to increase.

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Savaging from the "anti-science" crowd?
Posted by: 2dogarage on Jan 9, 2009 7:18 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You must mean the alternative health movement which seeks to support the body's infinitely intelligent capacity for self-healing as opposed to those in the "scientific" community who treat illness with addictive and poisonous magic bullets.

If the "new plan" works according to the old paradigm that patients have no part in their own recovery and that black box warnings are just minor details to be ignored then there will never be any profound change in the health care system.

The third leading cause of death in this country is "physician error". When people wake up to this fact perhaps they'll start demanding a truly "new plan".

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so it's ok to spread lies
Posted by: sonofloud on Jan 9, 2009 7:24 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
as long as you apologize afterwards?
let me guess, your a rick warren supporter?

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The biggest surprise...
Posted by: wildbill on Jan 9, 2009 9:05 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...is that Dr. Gupta would consider giving up the mass-media-celebrity big bucks for a government salary. Oh, wait...Dick Cheney already demonstrated that you don't have to give up big-buck paychecks to be a public servant!

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Don't you get it.
Posted by: lewb on Jan 9, 2009 12:11 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This an another appointment Obama needs to sell the people on all the "changes" he is going to make. It will be more of the same,all smoke and mirrors.Nothing much will change. It will seem different because the selling job has different buzzwords. The same problems will exist with no changes to the status quo. The only change will take place when we do away with money.

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An Inspired Choice?
Posted by: armorypk on Jan 10, 2009 6:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No. Dr. Andrew Weil would have been an inspired choice.

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cut from the same cloth
Posted by: sherman on Jan 10, 2009 7:30 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
both obama and gupta, all glitz and no substance, perfect duo.

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Guufus be Purty
Posted by: calichepit on Jan 12, 2009 1:11 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He be purty. I vote for him.

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The Washington channel
Posted by: StirMan on Jan 13, 2009 8:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama . . . our living 'coat of many colors,' is reminding me ever more of a certain alcoholic wife I had once—may she rest in peace, soon. One 'persona' so seemingly nurturing—inclusive?— that she would make the pied piper, in comparison, a media failure. The other 'coat' . . . you don't want to hear much about that. Deceiving, let us say. Try not to have health care needs, OK? The ACTING surgeon general is prolly not your friend. No Michael Moore he.

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DEAR JANE
Posted by: pacto on Jan 13, 2009 9:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
YOU ARE FULL OF --IT. THIS MAN IS A CORPORATE LACKEY.

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Politicians and their Apologists... tsk tsk
Posted by: DdC on Jan 21, 2009 3:09 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Politicians and their Apologists... tsk tsk
The art of ConPromise...


"Don't believe for a second this election is over.
Don't think for a minute that power will concede anything."

-- Barack Obama, 2009


Where justice is denied,
where poverty is enforced,
where ignorance prevails,
and where any one class is made to feel
that society is an organized conspiracy
to oppress, rob and degrade them,
neither persons nor property will be safe.

If there is no struggle there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation...
want crops without plowing up the ground,
they want rain without thunder and lightening.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters....

It is not light that we need, but fire;
it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

America is false to the past,
false to the present,
and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did and it never will.

Show me the exact amount of wrong and injustices
that are visited upon a person and I will show you
the exact amount of words endured by these people.

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do
and the proper application of his powers
to things needed to be done."
-- Frederick Douglass 1818 - 1895

Since we know health care reform is going to encounter vicious opposition from all the interests,

Not interest in the benefit of the people so why run from them and continue the Reagan Bush Nixon fear mongering? Opposition to health care?

why not hire a consummate communicator to front the program?

More Bullshit, I just love the smell of flimflammers in the morning...
Front the program, now that brings a whiff of the New Weird odor.


What is NOT to like about this choice,

He's a a consummate communicator that fronts programs. He politisizes science and like all AMA "front men" with blinders, he profits on "treatments" and ignorantly disregards what doesn't fit the agenda. Same quack science at Tuskegee, same doctors standing by to properly disregard the Geneva Convention the same as the quacks "doing harm" sitting on the fence or publicly spreading gossip perpetuating Americas longest war on its own citizens.

more doctors smoke camels

unless you are a Republican with millions of pharma bucks in your pockets?

I hear Fleetwood Mac, its 1992, the future is bright,
more incarcerations than Nixon, Reagan and Bush1 combined.
Inhaling or not.
The Patriot Ax and Education Ax are written.
NAFTA is born, don't ask don't tell...
Police Action on Kosovarians,
dropping bombs from 30,000 feet,
Spraying Paul Wellstone with Monsanto poisons
in Plan Rand Beers Colombia,
saving Al Gore's Occidental Oil from Indian burial grounds.
Blistering kids from the new agent orange.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...
you might accidentally pay attention today!

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Obama clin Biden?
Posted by: DdC on Jan 21, 2009 3:12 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What the Next Surgeon General Doesn't Know About Pot
Sanjay Gupta: By Russ Belville, NORML 1.8.9

The next surgeon general needs to stop putting politics before science. Gupta may not be ready for that.

In 2002, Gupta was more than willing to echo the outrageous claims that smoking pot would lead to psychosis, depression and schizophrenia:

Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia

I hope that the next surgeon general has been following the research on cannabis and mental health since 2002. This year, Dr. Mikkel Arendt of Aarhus University in Risskov, Denmark, said that people treated for a so-called cannabis-induced psychosis "…would have developed schizophrenia whether or not they used cannabis."

Bidens RAVE Ax
Drug labelling error forces retraction...
SECOND STUDY RETRACTED Mon, 15 Sep 2003
After Bidens RAVE Ax is tacked onto Amber Alert
after failing on its on lies 3 times...

The Rave Act stops NORML benefit concert

Well, you may or have not heard by now but the Rave Act has hit very close to home. On the 30th of May the Billings chapter of Montana NORML/SSDP had organized a highly publicized and expensive benefit concert featuring a number of local acts, the proceeds from which would have gone to help the medical marijuana campaign in Montana in 2004. Unfortunately, not only did my probation officer arrest me the day before, but the DEA came and shut things down the day of. The reason being of course that due to the RAVE Act anyone caught on the premisis with marijuana would automatically subjects our generous venue to a fine of $250,000.

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Not at this time?
Posted by: DdC on Jan 21, 2009 3:13 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

I know not what course others may take;
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

-- Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775


Virtues' of Ganja

Maybe, just maybe after almost 70 years of ongoing fabrications, degradations and incarcerations they can find an actual, breathing, red blooded victim of smoking cannabis. What's his name? How many millions smoke pot around the world and have no incidents or mishaps or lung problems or cancer or schizophrenia or depression or hairy palms or any of the propagandists pamphlets and brochures. Daryl Gates the father and author of DARE said to shoot the kids smoking pot casually. There ya go Goopy, better dead or caged than stoned.

Groups Endorsing RxGanja

Something a sturgeon germinal should know...

Politics of Pot

Studies conveniently never mentioned...

Drug War Distortions

Truth will only confuse you...

How Pot Became Demonized

Sanjay Gupta Pharmaceuticalists...

Sanjay Gupta: In Whose Interest?
Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)

Maybe he thinks the poor are untouchable?


Obama Tilts Toward Iran Contra Gates

30,000 killed? Now more rewards? Negroponte, Ollie Gollie...
Bush didn't feel like answering and Ronnie was asleep.
The worse "punishment" was a $50 fine
for the highest ranking officer Secord.
Half as much as the lowest pot fine for not killing 30,000 people.


Biz Czar Ramstad?

You know what they say about converts...

Change.gov questions: Stop the Ganjawar#1

Not at this time, end of discussion...

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What about Sam Stone?
Posted by: DdC on Jan 21, 2009 3:16 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Ganja 4 PTSD & Depression

300000 Iraq & Afghan Vets Suffer PTSD & Depression

Many Veterans are the Enemy in the D.E.A.th War

Sam Stone came home, To his wife and family After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served, Had shattered all his nerves, And left a little shrapnel in his knee. But the morphine eased the pain, And the grass grew round his brain, And gave him all the confidence he lacked, With a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back...

Gupta’s Not Looking So Healthy for America
Lisa Derrick Thursday January 8, 2009

Clearly, it is not in the best interests of the nation to have someone like this who lacks the requisite experience needed to oversee the federal agency that provides crucial health care assistance to some of the poorest and most underserved communities in America.

RxGOutlaw.jpg

waldoterrorist.jpg

prohibitionFlop.jpg

arno the corporatist.jpg

Should a TV news doctor be US surgeon general?
January 8, 2009 6:22 PM

The bruising row between Gupta and activist film-maker Michael Moore, when Gupta's CNN "fact-check" of Moore's documentary Sicko was challenged for its own alleged factual inaccuracies. Was Gupta too eager to attack a movie that delivered a damning indictment of the status quo in US healthcare?

My main concern about Gupta is his enthusiasm for many forms of medical screening - even when the scientific evidence indicates that it may not benefit patients. In one CNN broadcast, he championed the use of electrocardiogram tests and prostate cancer screening for people for whom the US Preventive Services Task Force does not endorse the tests. It is part of a wider pro-screening bias, his critics allege.

This is a worry, because unnecessary medical screening and the potentially risky treatment that can stem from it is one of the main problems blighting the US healthcare system, driving up costs to unaffordable levels. Some US doctors like to perform all the tests they can, because the more tests they perform, the more money they earn. But medical journalists and certainly the US surgeon general need to be appropriately sceptical, and stick to the scientific evidence.

US Government Patents Medical Pot

Cannabis extract made by Parke, Davis & Co. circa 1910

Former Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell is the new spokesperson for getting GW Pharmaceuticals' Sativex approved for use in the United States. Bayer and GW Pharmaceuticals announce marketing agreement on pioneering new cannabis-based treatment.

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