Overview

When Ronald Reagan chose C. Everett Koop to be Surgeon General of the United States in 1981, liberal politicians, women's groups, and even the public health community opposed the nomination because of his conservative social views and strong anti-abortion beliefs. By the time he left office in 1989, the same people who had vilified him as ""Dr. Kook"" were singing his praises, and many conservative politicians and activists were criticizing him as a traitor. How had Koop remade himself and this once major government office, which sounded grand but in the 1960s had been stripped to a minor advisory role? As Nigel M. de S. Cameron shows, Koop was, above all, guided in his decisions by his unwavering physician's commitment to saving lives. Even in the face of political pressures and what many expected to be his personal beliefs, he focused on science and public health. Both supporters and detractors consistently misjudged him. This first full biography of Koop draws on thousands of documents and hundreds of interviews with family, friends, and colleagues to tell the story of the precocious boy from Brooklyn who would become one of the most recognizable public figures in late-twentieth-century America. Koop remains a sterling example--to both left and right--of how public officials should conduct themselves.

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Nigel M. de S. Cameron has written about history, bioethics, theology, the values of the medical profession, and corporate social responsibility. He has served as a hospital consulting ethicist, was founding editor of the journal Ethics and Medicine, and was a board member of 2020health.org and BioCentre. He has testified before committees of the US Congress and the European Union, served as a member of US diplomatic delegations to United Nations agencies on health-related issues, and was a US Government candidate to be UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Health. He was appointed by Secretaries of State of both parties to serve four terms as a Commissioner of the US National Commission for UNESCO, and chaired its Committee on Social and Human Sciences. Mike Cooper is a British voice talent who left big-city life in London for a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Mike is recognizable from his years with the BBC World Service, and as the narrator of countless television documentaries. A disruptive influence in school, Mike's first break in narration came at age six, when his teacher realized he could tell the afternoon story better than her (and she could get a nap by way of a bonus). When he's not in his home studio, you'll find him enjoying hobby farm life and tending to two charming pet goats, named Baxter and Hazel.

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