page_title: C. Everett Koop
section_title: Views
hierarchical_section_title: C. Everett Koop / Views
caption_attribution_description: English: As U.S. Surgeon General, Koop became increasingly concerned about the escalating cost of health care, the growing disparity in access to health services, the mounting number of Americans without health insurance, and the financial future of Medicare and Medicaid. After leaving office in 1989, Koop continued to press for health care reform. He participated in a series of public forums with First Lady Hillary Clinton in the fall of 1993 to promote President Clinton's Health Security Act.
context_page_description: Charles Everett Koop was an American physician who became well known as a pediatric surgeon at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He was an early name in today's pediatric surgery. He then served as the Surgeon General of the United States and as vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps from 1982 to 1989, under President Ronald Reagan.
  He was thought of as the first "celebrity Surgeon General", because he is the first Surgeon General to receive an Emmy Award, and remains the only Surgeon General to have done so. Koop was also called Chick Koop by some of his friends.
context_section_description: Today Koop is well known for four parts of his work:
  Abortion: Though Koop did not think abortion was right due to his religion, he did not say anything as to whether abortions done by very skilled medical doctors were bad for the health of women who the abortions were being done on.
  Tobacco: In 1984 he wrote that nicotine has an addictiveness like that of heroin or cocaine. People did not think that Koop would say something like this, mainly people who thought he would stay with the views his office had on tobacco products. He also wanted a warning to be mentioned on all cigarette packs, although some of these warnings were there since 1965.
  AIDS: Koop was Surgeon General when AIDS became well known. He wrote the official U.S. policy for AIDS and soon after mailed AIDS information to every U.S. house. Gays and people who supported them were not happy with how Koop noted gay sex as one of the most likely ways to catch the disease, but Koop would not say he was sorry as he thought gay sex was the greatest risk of getting AIDS. He also did not fare well with people who once supported him because Koop thought that schools should teach about sex early on, and note how to use condoms the right way to stop AIDS from spreading. There were also problems with how Koop's office didn't try hard to make a cure for AIDS, making people think his office was only making the public know about AIDS.
  Baby Doe and the Rights of Handicapped Children: In April 1982, a child born in Bloomington, Indiana was diagnosed with Down syndrome as well as problems related to the esophagus. Six days later, after physicians were not sure whether to treat the baby or let him die, the baby died, having never gotten his esophagus problems fixed. Baby Doe, as he would be known, became a symbol for children born with birth defects and other problems. Although Koop did not have a role in the case at first, he had an interest in it. When he worked in Philadelphia, Koop and many others worked on 475 babies with problems over 35 years, with ones who lived on the rise. It is due to this work that he fought hard to protect newborns that had problems.
caption: Koop with Hillary Clinton, November 1993
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