Former surgeon general C. Everett Koop was a towering figure in the  world of public health. A pediatric surgeon with deeply held religious  convictions, Koop was an iconoclast willing to challenge the accepted  wisdom of both major political parties when their platforms contradicted  the evidence. What could public health officials today learn from  Koop's example?

Join host Cameron English as he sits down Dr. Chuck Dinerstein and ACSH contributor Barbara Pfeffer Billauer  to break down these stories on episode 31 of the Science Dispatch podcast:

The recipe for good public health policy is like a souffle—simple  ingredients combined in a complex manner. Done well, it’s a delight.  Heavy-handed, using sour (outdated) ingredients, it’s a mess, even  toxic.

Everett Koop was a man of morals. A religious man who read the bible.  He was also a man of science. He got his job through politics. Yet he  knew how to keep these forces separate. Nowhere was this more apparent  than in his pushback against political pressures to oppose abortion on  health grounds and to educate the populace about AIDS and tobacco use.