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At a US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Richard H. Carmona joined fellow former surgeons general David Satcher and C. Everett Koop in calling for less political interference and more independence for the office.

Carmona, who served under President Bush from 2002 to 2006, said appointees in the administration removed politically sensitive content from his speeches and routinely blocked him from speaking out on public health matters such as abstinence-only sex education, stem cell research, and the emergency contraceptive Plan B.

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armona testified that when the administration was urging Congress to fund abstinence-only education, he was prevented from discussing research on the effectiveness of a comprehensive approach that includes promoting condoms as well as abstinence. "There was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to just preach abstinence, which I felt was scientifically incorrect," he told the panel.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological, or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized, or simply buried," said Carmona.

from the Washington Post