Satcher detractor
To the editor:
I recently read the FP Report in which David Satcher's confirmation for surgeon general was hailed as a great victory for the AAFP. Have we become so desperate to be represented in Washington that we would laud the appointment of a man guilty of unnecessary deaths in a supposedly double-blind medical study and who supports partial-birth abortions? What message does this send to family practice residents and to the American people who have high regard for the family doctor? If you have attempted to raise the stature of family practice, you have failed miserably.
SIGURD S. DAEHNKE, M.D.
Winfield, Kan.Editor's note: Dr. Satcher concurred with President Bill Clinton's refusal to sign a bill banning late-term abortions because exceptions were not made for the health of the mother. He approved a Third World azathioprine study that was criticized in a New England Journal of Medicine editorial; two NEJM editorial board members resigned in protest of the editorial.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1998 by American Academy of Family Physicians.