February 25, 2014
Dear Senate Majority Leader Reid,
I am writing to convey my objection to floor consideration of the
nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to the position of Surgeon General of the
United States.
I have serious concerns about Dr. Murthy's ability to impartially
serve as "the Nation's Doctor". The majority of Dr. Murthy's
non-clinical experience is in political advocacy. As you know, Dr.
Murthy is the co-founder of Doctors for America, born out of the
campaign organization Doctors for Obama, and it is a project of the
left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress and has worked
closely with Organizing for America, President Obama's political
organization. I have outstanding questions about who is funding these
organizations, and it is clear that more transparency is needed from a
group whose influence frequently impacts appointments in the Obama
Administration.
The primary policy goals of Dr. Murthy's organization have been
focused on advancing stricter gun control laws and promoting the
Affordable Care Act. In his efforts to curtail Second Amendment rights,
Dr. Murthy has continually referred to guns as a public health issue on
par with heart disease and has diminished the role of mental health in
gun violence. As a physician, I am deeply concerned that he has
advocated that doctors use their position of trust to ask patients,
including minors, details about gun ownership in the home. His
organization has also advocated that physicians collect and report data
on gun ownership to the Federal Government and increasing Federal
funding for gun control research.
Historically, the Surgeon General of the United States has been a
position with the purpose of educating Americans so that they may lead
healthier lives, rather than advancing a political agenda. Dr. Murthy
has disqualified himself from being Surgeon General because of his
intent to use that position to launch an attack on Americans' right to
own a firearm under the guise of a public health and safety campaign.
Accordingly, I will object to any unanimous consent agreement or the
waiver of any rule with respect to the nomination of Dr. Murthy.
Sincerely,
Rand Paul, M.D.
Dr. Murthy is an odd choice for this post, Although he has excellent credentials as an academic physician he has never served in private practice. As to his advancing a political agenda, how does that make him any different from any other political appointee? There are good reasons for objecting to this man's appointment as "The Nations Doctor", politics isn't one of them.
ReplyDeleteJoycelyn Elders debased the position to the point that it really doesn't matter.
DeletePerhaps I shall once again be told to keep my nose out of American politics but I have no option but to try to point out something so blindingly obvious that the author of this article (Rand Paul) shows signs of advanced head in the sand disease. Let me explain.
ReplyDeleteR>P appears to base his objection of the appointment on purely political grounds in that he believes the nominee is proposing to wage an anti gun ownership crusade. R P appears to want to shoot the messenger even when the majority of Americans agree that gun ownership restriction is necessary.
As an interested observer from a country with successful gun laws, I fail to understand how guns can be so freely available to the populace that even six year old children can get their hands on a firearm, Kids of the same age are apparently taken to ranges and in extreme cases into the hunting fields.
Look to your press, every day there are accounts of crime and accidents where countless Americans are needlessly killed simply because some one can pick up a gun and ruin his/her own life while taking the life of his victim. Kids in schools across the nation have to reside in classrooms locked down in case some nutter tries to get into the classroom. How can the wonderful history and the principals of your nation be taught when the kids are not free to learn but are bound by the law the constitution was written to uphold. I have written of the second amendment on many occasions, I have observed how necessary it was over two centuries ago. I have also pointed out the weakness of the position taken by the NRA when they are forced to cling to a concept so out of date and irrelevant. A recent statement by a spokesperson of the NRA “The best defence against a bad man with a gun, is a good man with a gun”. What does that say about the intellect of the leadership of the NRA?
In the interest of common sense and the prolongation of life, surely it is time to address the problem. With the open border to the south it will be almost impossible but a start must be made, not as a political crusade but as a gesture from government to the people they are sworn to govern and protect.
Cheers from Aussie. I do not expect your universal approval, but as friends, can I request you at least think about it?
Rand Paul for president.
Delete“R P appears to want to shoot the messenger even when the majority of Americans agree that gun ownership restriction is necessary.”
DeleteI hear this a lot lately…. “the majority of Americans agree….”
The majority of Americans approve of Gay marriage
The majority of Americans approve of abortion rights
The majority of Americans believe in climate change
The majority of Americans agree that gun ownership should be restricted
The majority of Americans agree on the need for immigration reform.
Most Americans agree that women should have children before they are 25
All of these things are true… but with serious qualifiers. Qualifiers as to extent and method which few of the ‘most americans’ criers’ ever touch on.
Most Americans approve of the right for a woman to have access to abortion. Yeah, when clinically necessary, but are dead set against the open ended use of abortion for lifestyle choice. Why don’t we hear a call for the needless termination of tens of thousands of souls just because someone had an inconvenient lapse in judgment or acted in a fit of personal rage against the ‘parasite’ growing with her?
Most people don’t approve of gay marriage. They approve of a secular recognition for legal remedy. Most people, that really have a say in the matter, think that the gay issue, like contraceptives should be left to the church and its people to decide.. As marriage is and has been, at least for the last few hundred years, a religious institution and not one of the state.
Most people believe in climate change…. Personally I think we all should…. It does. But to say that the majority of people attribute it to human activity is a bit dubious at best and most likely a deliberate assertion to motivate and action, necessary or not.
Most Americans agree on the need for immigration reform. This of course implies that most people prefer open borders, unlimited immigration and amnesty every few years. I believe that just like my wife immigrated to the US and I immigrated to the UK, people should enter the country via due process. It took my wife 18 months all in and she had to be outside the country during the entire process… That’s the kind of immigration reform ‘most Americans’ are talking about.
Yes you could say that most Americans would like to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people, they also know that the second amendment is just as valid today as it was when it was written and know the extent to which the antigun lobby will go to purge guns completely. I am well aware of the damage the right to keep and bear arms can do in the wrong hands, just like I know how much needless death is created by open-ended abortion ‘rights’. It seems nonsensical that we give an irresponsible person the right to terminate our world’s youth for actions that are in and of themselves free choice, with a surgical knife but are dead set against allowing responsible individuals free access to anything that at the end of the day harm no one without the guidance and intent of the user. I also find it highly disingenuous that a people so hell bent on abortion, infancide and euthanasia should worry about the many suicides carried out with a gun rather than the more hit and miss approach of say a bridge or prescription overdose.
Most Americans believe in being responsible for your own actions…. Or do they?
I think that the tide is turning with respect to what 'Most Americans Think' Pier Morgan being the most recent rejection of 1)outside interference and 2) the many red-herrings put up by the anti gun lobby to promote their agenda and skew the conversation away from more relevant issues.
Rand Paul for president huh? He'll run in the middle and then you won't like him William.
DeleteHe will run in the middle... perhaps but he will use the presidency to change the dialogue... the dialogue about the constitution, free markets and liberty. Their is no doubt that he will need to compromise on some things but if he can turn at least get the rudder to this ship turned in the right direction, he is a good vote by me. At least the veto will be on the right side of the budget problem....
DeleteWilliam.
DeleteI understand there have been three confirmed SGs since Elders. I concur that her approach left much to be desired but are you suggesting that by 'debasing" the position, the office is incapable of rehabilitation?. Perhaps if your reasoning is followed, the Office of President following Nixon should also be considered debased to the point of irrelevance?
Can I suggest that both individuals left a bad smell behind them, their office itself however deserves respect not only for its place in history but for what it represents By the way, would you care to elaborate on your reply to my post concerning the letter from Rand Paul. I would suggest that “ Rand Paul for president” does not carry a lot of weight in a debate?
Cheers from Aussie.
King the country would do quite well without a surgeon general figurehead. Exactly what have those in the position added to my well being?
DeleteI am well aware of your attitude concerning our Bill of Rights so why should I bother to explain my support for a true American patriot?
Rand Paul would take up where Ronald Reagan left off. That's all I'll say.
William
DeleteI am ashamed to admit that I did not read your response to my post until a few minutes ago. I normally check every day for responses on various threads in which I am interested.
Just for clarification; can I emphasize that my regard for your Bill of Rights is very strong. Further, I guess I am one of few outside the US who even know about its history. That t such an alter to nationhood is in fact an add on to the constitution is truly remarkable. That the BofR was added to placate and ensure some states ratify the constitution is even more so.
My only complaint concerning the Bill of Rights is the second.As with your self, I shall not elaborate further. As we say in Aussie, I would be flogging a dead horse.
Cheers from Aussie
Many here would argue that without our 2nd the others remain unprotected.
DeleteNo King I fully agree with you. To object because he isn't qualified as in he lacks clinical practice well I might agree. To object because of his political agenda I agree is shortsighted at best.
ReplyDeleteI also sorta agree with you on guns. The ability to own guns is a key right of our constitution. Regardless of the reasons for it two hundred years ago it was a right given to the people. We need to protect that right but still while do that figure out a way to keep the guns from those that shouldn't have them by increasing background checks limiting firepower (magazine size for example) and enforcing laws already in effect. Contrary to what some here think I am not for elimination of the right to bear arms, I have been a gun owner for years, but with the weapons available today some controls are justified.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMurthy wasn’t even on the radar as a driving force in the medical profession. As already stated, he has no clinical experience to speak of and being Yale educated does not a doctor make. At 36 he has spent since 2008 creating Doctors for America, whose primary function is to lobby for ObamaCare. So for at least half of his medical career he has focused not on medical research but objectives of political importance to our current president.
ReplyDeleteMost university hospitals are split into multiple departments: medicine, surgery, anesthesiology, trauma, etc. Each of these departments, sometimes containing hundreds of physicians and researchers is headed by a chairman or chairwoman – usually professors of medicine in their own specialties who have vast clinical experience. Those chairmen or chairwomen are picked by a selective committee of peers who look for credentials, experience and contributions in science.
At the ripe old age of 36, Murthy would not even come close to being picked to run any medical department, in any academic medical center in this country. This is not because he is a bad doctor, but simply because he has not contributed enough, published enough or healed enough to qualify him to be a medical leader.
This brings us to the point of political advocacy. I find it appalling when a person is brought into an administration and blatantly pushes agendas and contracts for friends… Like Cheney with Halliburton. I find it just as improper to hire people to back politics outside their field of their expertise and while Murthy is educated as a neurosurgeon, it hardly qualifies him to know all of the facets of gun ownership and societal problems surrounding guns… perhaps he would have been more credible(as a neurosurgeon) had he put forth solutions to the propensity for violence in society that leads to gun crime, knockout games, road rage and the medical traumas that come from it.
He has spent the last couple of years touring America in a bus called “Patients Over Politics” and now in a bus called "Coverage is Good Medicine”. His main message being that people just don’t understand or know what the ACA is all about… Of course, unless he has some inside information, congress is still being surprised by elements discovered within that which they passed.
Once again I hear, “that’s the way it always is so what’s the big deal.” Perhaps that is the entire problem with the entire political appointment system… it’s just too political for good governance… Perhaps politicians are too political for good governance. Reminds me of the lead medical researcher here in Britain who stepped forward and said that there is no medical evidence or justification to support the basis for marijuana being a class 1 drug… medical consequences did not warrant it and the damage done by incarceration was even more detrimental… he was fired (pressured to quit) because politicians didn’t like the message. We have an obesity and diabetes epidemic worldwide that cannot be explained by the consumption of sugar yet except for the easy political fringes like sugar and processed food, I have yet to hear a surgeon general advocate for any serious change in our diets… that just wouldn’t be politically correct.