DR. C. EVERETT KOOP

FORMER SURGEON GENERAL

The most famous surgeon general in U.S. history, Dr. Koop was dubbed "America's Family Doctor" for his heroic efforts to assure the highest level of health for every citizen.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, October 14, 1916, Charles Everett Koop graduated from Dartmouth (1937) and Cornell (M.D.,1941), and became a world-renowned pediatric surgeon. Dr. Koop, who was a born-again Christian, held conservative views on matters such as abortion, which caused liberals to oppose his appointment as Surgeon General by President Reagan in 1981. Once in office, however, he stunned conservatives by standing up to the tobacco industry, for example, and urging Americans to stop smoking.

While President Reagan avoided mentioning AIDS and advocated sexual abstinence, Dr. Koop advocated sex education in the schools and went before Congress to support condom advertising. Attacked by California congressman William Dannemeyer (see card 73), who wanted the names of everyone with HIV "to wipe them off the face of the earth," Koop said, "Some of these people seem more concerned with homosexual genocide than with human tragedy." He then had a brochure, Understanding AIDS (1988), mailed to every residence in the country. With 107 million copies it was the largest mailing in American history. Its explicit text mentioning oral and anal sex and condoms enraged many conservatives.

Dr. Koop resigned in 1989. In his memoirs, Koop (1991), he said he personally opposed drug use and certain sex practices, but as Surgeon General he had a duty as a doctor and a Christian not to make moral judgments. "I'm here to save people if I can." Next Card 97: LARRY KRAMER: Writer, AIDS Activist

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