Do we really need a national wellness coach?

As a follow-up to Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s selection for the next Surgeon General comes a compelling analysis. When the position was originally created in 1870, it actually had a medical role to administer the Marine Hospital System, which cared for sick and injured merchant seamen. My, how the role has changed, which Steven Milloy chronicles in a fascinating article on the history of the Surgeon General’s job.

“[O]ver the last 96 years, the Surgeon General has gone from working on genuine public health problems (infectious disease, clean water and sanitation) to advocating golf, Mickey Mouse-less food and beverage containers and video exercise games as public health measures,” he writes. And who can forget when the current Surgeon General, Dr. Steven Galson, kicked off his term by declaring Santa Claus too fat to be a healthy role model for children!

Milloy asks if it isn’t “Time for a Surgeon General-ectomy.”