WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona's claims the post is too guided by politics is gaining more attention among Congressional Democrats.
Carmona was fired a year ago June, and said little about his frustration until last January in a New York speech, the New York Times reported.
"I increasingly witnessed a government that was more and more using theology and ideology to drive its policies and its people -- stem cells, abortion, Plan B, the war and many more," he said. "Our go-it-alone so-called cowboy diplomacy has in fact isolated us from the world more than ever in our history."
At the invitation of Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Carmona testified before the committee last month and called for the post of U.S. Surgeon General to be limited to medicine and not politics, the report said.
"The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party," Carmona told the committee.
