Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona told Congress Tuesday that Bush administration officials repeatedly stopped him from speaking out on major health care issues such as stem cell research, edited his speeches and prevented publication of significant health reports because they did not fit the president’s political agenda.

“The reality is that the nation’s doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas,” Carmona told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried.” Carmona was surgeon general from 2002 to 2006.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Tuesday said it disagreed with Carmona’s statements. “It has always been this administration’s position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science. This administration gave Dr. Carmona ample opportunity to communicate his views to the American people, and he routinely did so in hundreds of appearances before the public, the media and Congress during his four years as surgeon general,” the department said in a statement.

Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., said that political interference with the surgeon general “appears to have reached a new level in this administration . . . the surgeon general’s greatest resource — his or her ability to speak honestly and credibly to the nation about public health — is in great jeopardy.”

While two other former Surgeon Generals, David Satcher and C. Everett Koop, also told the panel they faced political interference, Carmona said they and others who previously held the post told him that “never had they seen Washington D.C. so partisan or a new surgeon general so politically challenged and marginalized as during my tenure . . . the job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation — not the doctor of a political party.”

Carmona’s testimony came two days before James W. Holsinger Jr., Bush’s nominee to succeed Carmona, faces a confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Gay rights groups oppose Holsinger’s nomination, citing what they see as a history of anti-gay viewpoints, but the administration has said that the cardiologist, whose previous posts include running Kentucky’s state health system and the University of Kentucky’s medical system, is well qualified for the post. (See related story, CQ HealthBeat, June 29, 2007).

HELP Chairman Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said Tuesday that Carmona’s testimony “is yet another disturbing account of how the Bush administration has put ideology ahead of the health needs of the American people.”

Carmona told the House panel that in 2002, when he wanted to speak publicly about scientific issues involved in embryonic stem cell research, administration officials told him to “stand down, not talk about it.” References to stem cells or other politically sensitive topics were removed from his speeches, which Carmona said were vetted and edited by Bush political appointees. “I told my staff: Let them put in whatever they want. I’m not going to say it anyway,” he said.

Koop and Satcher also testified about the political interference they faced. While federal studies have shown that needle exchange programs reduced the spread of HIV, Satcher said the Clinton administration would not support federal funding for such programs, so he instead traveled throughout the country speaking in support of the programs. Koop, who served in the Reagan administration, described how he and then-HHS Secretary Otis Bowen kept quiet about their work on an AIDS report until it was released to the press and electronic media. “If we had followed protocol and had every word scrutinized by the secretary’s secretariat, these reports, because of their nature and plan speaking, would not have seen the light of day,” Koop said.

Carmona said he was told not to talk publicly about the emergency contraceptive known as “Plan B,” or to discuss alternatives to the administration’s focus on abstinence-only sex education. He said he fought for years to release a report on the dangers of second-hand smoke — that report was released last year — and that he was also prevented from publishing reports on emergency preparedness and global health because administration officials wanted more of a “political document.”

When asked to identify the individuals who blocked the reports, Carmona told the House panel he would prefer to do so in private because some of the people still work in the Bush administration.