C. Everett Koop
Dr. Charles Everett "Chick" Koop (1916-2013) was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the Surgeon General under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush from 1981-1989, and a professor at Dartmouth Medical School.
[edit] Early ties to fundamentalists
Koop co-authored a "right to life" book with Christian fundamentalist Francis Schaeffer. Later, he was promoted by the Reagan administration.
[edit] Subsequent history
Koop claimed that the Reagan administration had prevented him from speaking about the AIDS epidemic until 1986, when he was commissioned to write a report on the disease. He became unpopular with fundamentalists due to his reports finding that AIDS was not a punishment from Gawd, his promotion of sex education as a means to curb the spread of AIDS, and his refusal to endorse pseudoscience peddled by the wingnut set surrounding abortion. Koop himself was pro-life, but viewed the morality of abortion as a separate issue from public health and the medical science of abortion. He was also known for his anti-smoking campaigns.