A Bush appointee spiked a 2006 surgeon general's report on global health issues for not promoting the administration's policy efforts, WaPo reports. Richard Steiger, an HHS official and longtime Bush family friend, suppressed a report urging Americans to take on global health problems, and discussed connections between poverty and illness.
Steiger, who has no background in health policy or medicine, demanded that the report contain language praising the administration's successes. Another senior official told the report's team "this will be a political document, or it will not be released." Steiger released a statement denying the charges, claiming the report was not published due to "lack of scientific rigor." (More Bush administration stories.)