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C. Everett Koop: The Health of the Nation
Tells how C. Everett Koop surprised the American public by setting his right-wing views aside and by using his position to inform Americans about such controversial health issues as AIDS and cigarette smoking.
104 pages, Library Binding
First published October 1, 1992
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March 31, 2025
This book was published in 1992 so it's been around. It's part of an 8-book series of 20th century men and women who made significant impact on American sports, health, music, culture and politics. I was drawn to this book because I was growing up when Dr. Koop was a household name in the 1980s with the election of President Ronald Reagan. We all knew him first because of his concern with smoking and its impact on the health, and lives, of Americans. Back then, every kid was purchasing cigarettes in every corner store, and death rates from lung cancer were outrageous. The Koops lived in our neighborhood, outside Philadelphia, so we further paid attention. So when I saw this slim book, I had to read it. Less than 100 pages, it gives a clear view of American life, medical care, health, politics preceding the 80s and during the 80s. While we all knew him for his impact on smoking, which then was a pestilence throughout America, the book also covers issues of life and death medical decisions, AIDS, and abortion, and how these issues then ripped through, and in many cases ripped apart, American life, and some still do today.
The book presents Dr. Koop's ability to distinguish between his own personal beliefs on the ethical side of a topic and decisions that a medical doctor sworn to save lives was obligated to make. A deeply moral and ethical man, as a physician and the Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Koop realized his obligation, such as in the case of AIDS, was to the patient, the person sick or dying of AIDS, and to do what he could to prevent the deaths from AIDS of thousands of additional Americans in the future. In the case of smoking, his obligation was to the citizen, not to the powerful tobacco lobby, and he held fast to his judgement despite attempts on the part of President Ronald Regan to block his testimony before Congress. In the case of abortion, he studied the issue from all angles and, as a medical doctor, was unable to take a position that roundly condemned abortion, and ultimately advocated for sex education in our schools and the use of condoms in certain situations. In all these cases he ran into powerful lobbies of opposition, and became disfavored by his boss and the man who had nominated him for the position of Attorney General, President Reagan, who had known about AIDS and had kept quiet on it, refusing for some time to address it.
This book, though slim, accomplishes several things: It presents the life of a courageous man and a brilliant surgeon; and it exposes the political forces that exist in American government that sometimes play games with the people's health, and the lives of the thousands and millions of Americans, the very people the Government should be protecting.
And it is for this reason that Dr. C. Everett Koop became known as "America's Doctor," a title he deeply deserved. I strongly recommend this book.
The book presents Dr. Koop's ability to distinguish between his own personal beliefs on the ethical side of a topic and decisions that a medical doctor sworn to save lives was obligated to make. A deeply moral and ethical man, as a physician and the Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Koop realized his obligation, such as in the case of AIDS, was to the patient, the person sick or dying of AIDS, and to do what he could to prevent the deaths from AIDS of thousands of additional Americans in the future. In the case of smoking, his obligation was to the citizen, not to the powerful tobacco lobby, and he held fast to his judgement despite attempts on the part of President Ronald Regan to block his testimony before Congress. In the case of abortion, he studied the issue from all angles and, as a medical doctor, was unable to take a position that roundly condemned abortion, and ultimately advocated for sex education in our schools and the use of condoms in certain situations. In all these cases he ran into powerful lobbies of opposition, and became disfavored by his boss and the man who had nominated him for the position of Attorney General, President Reagan, who had known about AIDS and had kept quiet on it, refusing for some time to address it.
This book, though slim, accomplishes several things: It presents the life of a courageous man and a brilliant surgeon; and it exposes the political forces that exist in American government that sometimes play games with the people's health, and the lives of the thousands and millions of Americans, the very people the Government should be protecting.
And it is for this reason that Dr. C. Everett Koop became known as "America's Doctor," a title he deeply deserved. I strongly recommend this book.
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