THIS year鈥檚 presidential campaign has taken on an almost surreal quality. Usually, candidates argue about things like jobs and national defence. But this year, they are screaming at each other over the potential of human embryonic stem cells to cure disease.
A variety of factors have conspired to make stem cells a campaign issue. The death of former president Ronald Reagan has much to do with it. He had Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and died of pneumonia. Stem-cell therapies are probably not useful for Alzheimer鈥檚, but former first lady Nancy Reagan is convinced that they might someday prevent others suffering the same sort of cruel fate as her husband. Of course, she also consulted an astrologer while in the White House, but stem-cell advocates are not disposed to remember that peccadillo.
When Ronald Reagan died, his son, Ron Junior, was emboldened to speak out. And with delightful irony the Democrats invited the son of a Republican icon to speak at their party convention. But that does not explain why Democrats think supporting embryonic stem-cell research will win them the White House. After all, to get embryonic stem-cell lines started, you have to destroy an embryo. And no matter where you stand on abortion, no one can feel warm and fuzzy about destroying something that could turn into a human being.
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Ah, but there鈥檚 the perversity of politics. Americans are getting older and worry more about their health. Embryonic stem cells have the potential to cure diseases of ageing (well, maybe). In the face of all-too-imminent mortality, strong beliefs about the sanctity of life beginning at conception can easily crumble. Americans are human, after all.
WHAT with all the hoopla about stem cells, one might wonder what the government鈥檚 top doctor has to say about them. That person would be Richard Carmona, a doctor from Arizona. He hasn鈥檛 said much of anything about them, though. Surgeons general normally toe the line drawn by the White House on medical policy; they couldn鈥檛 do much otherwise anyway, having only moral suasion to influence the nation鈥檚 health.
But moral suasion in some hands can be quite a club. There was one surgeon general who knew how to swing it. C. Everett Koop, who died this month aged 87, had the job during the Reagan administration. He was unlike any other surgeon general.
Koop was a lifelong Republican who enraged conservative colleagues by talking long and loud about AIDS when Reagan preferred to ignore it. He urged more sex education for young people, rather than abstinence as the conservatives recommended.
Koop also opposed abortion but he preferred to inveigh against tobacco companies, calling them 鈥渕erchants of death鈥� 鈥� a stance that some viewed as oddly anti-corporate for a Republican. The backlash from conservatives made him bitter about mixing politics and medicine.
When he left the government he started a number of enterprises aimed at educating the public instead. As a businessman he did not do especially well. But there hasn鈥檛 been a surgeon general since Koop who rattled the medical mavens in Washington DC the way he did.
