David Satcher

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David Satcher
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In office
1993 – February 13, 1998
PresidentBill Clinton
Preceded byWilliam L. Roper
Succeeded byJeffrey Koplan
Personal details
Born (1941-03-02) March 2, 1941 (age 83)
Anniston, Alabama, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
EducationMorehouse College (BS)
Case Western Reserve University (MD, PhD)
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/service Public Health Service
Years of service1998–2002
RankAdmiral

David Satcher, (born March 2, 1941) is an American physician, and public health administrator. He was a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as the 10th Assistant Secretary for Health, and the 16th Surgeon General of the United States.

Biography

Early years

Satcher was born in

Civil Rights Movement and was arrested on multiple occasions.[2]

Satcher graduated from

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the American College of Physicians, and is board certified in preventive medicine. Satcher pledged Omega Psi Phi fraternity and is an initiate of the Psi chapter of Morehouse College
.

Career

Satcher served as professor and Chairman of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at

Sickle Cell Research Center for six years. Satcher served as President of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1982 to 1993. He also held the posts of Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry from 1993 to 1998.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Scandal

Under Satcher's leadership, the CDC took millions of dollars Congress set aside for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) research and secretly spent the funds in other areas.[3] The misappropriation of funds continued for three years (from 1995-1998) and the CDC attempted to cover up their actions. The issue only came to light after a CDC employee filed a whistleblower report and a special Inspector General was appointed to investigate the matter.[4] In the words of Martha Katz, Deputy Director for Policy and Legislation at CDC: "Resources intended for CFS were actually used for measles, polio and other disease areas. This was a breach of CDC's solemn trust and is in direct conflict with its core values."[5]

Surgeon General

Vice Admiral David Satcher, USPHS

Satcher served simultaneously in the positions of Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health from February 1998 through January 2001 at the

PHSCC, to reflect his dual offices.[citation needed
]

In his first year as Surgeon General, Satcher released the 1998 Surgeon General's report "Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups." In it he reported that tobacco use was on the rise among youth in each of the country's major racial and ethnic groups, threatening their long-term health prospects.[7]

Satcher was appointed by Bill Clinton, and remained Surgeon General until 2002, contemporaneously with the first half of the first term of President George W. Bush's administration. Eve Slater would later replace him as Assistant Secretary for Health in 2001. Because he no longer held his dual office, Satcher was reverted and downgraded to the grade of vice admiral in the regular corps for the remainder of his term as Surgeon General. In 2001, his office released the report, The Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior. The report was hailed by the chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians as an overdue paradigm shift—"The only way we're going to change approaches to sexual behavior and sexual activity is through school. In school, not only at the doctor's office." However, conservative political groups denounced the report as being too permissive towards homosexuality and condom distribution in schools. When Satcher left office, he retired with the rank of vice admiral.

Post–Surgeon General

Upon his departure from the post, Satcher became a fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. In the fall of 2002, he assumed the post of Director of the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

On December 20, 2004, Satcher was named interim president at

health disparities for minorities, the poor, and other disadvantaged groups.[8][9]

In 2013, he co-founded the advocacy group

African American Network Against Alzheimer's.[10]

As of 2002, he sits on the boards of Johnson & Johnson and, as of 2007, MetLife.[11][12]

Criticisms of health inequality

While acknowledging progress, Satcher has criticized health disparities. He asked the question, “What if we had eliminated disparities in health in the last century?” and calculated that there would have been 83,500 fewer Black deaths in the year 2000. That would have included 24,000 fewer Black deaths from cardiovascular disease. If infant mortality had been equal across racial and ethnic groups in 2000, 4,700 fewer Black infants would have died in their first year of life.

Without disparities, there would have been 22,000 fewer Black deaths from diabetes and almost 2,000 fewer Black women would have died from breast cancer; 250,000 fewer Blacks would have been infected with HIV/AIDS and 7,000 fewer Blacks would have died from complications due to AIDS in 2000. As many as 2.5 million additional Blacks, including 650,000 children, would have had health insurance in that year. He called on people to work for solutions at the individual, community, and policy level.[13]

Satcher supports a

single payer health plan, in which insurance companies would be eliminated and the government would pay health care costs directly to doctors, hospitals and other providers through the tax system.[14]

In 1990, while President of Meharry Medical College, Satcher founded a quarterly academic journal entitled the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Both the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Medical Library Association rate this journal as one of the nation's important public health journals.[citation needed]

Awards and honors

He is the recipient of many honorary degrees and numerous distinguished honors, including the

Ebony magazine. In 1995, he received the Breslow Award in Public Health and in 1997 the New York Academy of Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, he received the Benjamin E. Mays Trailblazer Award
and the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. An academic society at the Case Western School of Medicine is named in Dr. Satcher's honor, and, in 2009, he delivered the university's Commencement Address.

References

  1. ^ David Satcher (March 16, 2008). The Tavis Smiley Show (Interview). Interviewed by Tavis Smiley http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/. Retrieved January 17, 2008. {{cite interview}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ Cimons, Marlene (July 3, 2020). "How Fauci, 5 other health specialists deal with covid-19 risks in their everyday lives". Washington Post. Retrieved July 4, 2020. Satcher: I was quite active in the civil rights movement when I was a student at Morehouse. I went to jail at least five times. What bothers me about today's protests is that they aren't as organized as we were.
  3. ^ Mara Sheldon (July 30, 1999). "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Misappropriation". The Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Association of America (Press release). Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  4. ^ Joe Stephens (August 6, 1999). "CDC whistleblower". Washington Post. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  5. ^ "Misuse of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Monies by CDC Admitted". www.newswise.com. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  6. ^ "David Satcher | American Physician & Public Health Advocate | Britannica". www.britannica.com. February 27, 2024. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  7. ^ "Surgeon General's Report Warns of HEalth Reversals as Minority Teen Smoking Increases" (Press release). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. April 27, 1998. Archived from the original on September 23, 2008. Retrieved January 17, 2008.
  8. ^ "David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. | Morehouse School of Medicine". www.msm.edu. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  9. ^ "Satcher Health Leadership Institute". Satcher Health Leadership Institute. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  10. ^ "AfricanAmericansAgainstAlzheimer's". UsAgainstAlzheimer's. November 21, 2023. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  11. ^ Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher Elected to Johnson & Johnson Board. Johnson & Johnson, 17 Apr. 2002, Johnson&Johnson Press Release. Retrieved 28 August 2020
  12. ^ “Former Surgeon General Joins MetLife Board.” Global Reinsurance, 17 Jan. 2007, Former Surgeon General Joins MetLife Board. Retrieved 28 August 2020
  13. PMID 17076554
    .
  14. ^ "Physicians Propose Solution to Rising Health Care Costs and Uninsured" (Press release). Physicians for a National Health Program. February 12, 2003. Retrieved January 17, 2008.
  15. ^ "UC Berkeley School of Public Health announces 2013 "public health heroes"". Berkeley Health Online. December 6, 2012. Archived from the original on January 27, 2013. Retrieved March 8, 2013.

External links

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