Since ol' Sanjay went down in flames. What's up with that? .

PNHP blog has an excerpt and analysis of a CNN interview with the Big Dawg:

Former President Bill Clinton makes two very important points here. (1) Single payer dramatically reduces administrative waste, and he implies that it would be popular, as is Medicare now. (2) The private insurers “make a lot of money through saying no,” and “we can’t go on basically giving them more and more dollars every year — the insurance industry — and getting people sicker and sicker and leaving more and more people behind.” Single payer is good; private insurers are bad.

What a shame.

VICENTE NAVARRO

Am I the only one who think an Atul Gawande-Sanjay Gupta team would be unbeatable?

yes

Gawande and Gupta have both been caught lying. You can't win with liars.

Please join John Conyers in opposing Gupta for SG.

Letter from John Conyers:

Earlier this month I raised concerns about the trial balloon floated for Surgeon General, Dr. Sanjay Gupta .

The doctor is a health commentator for CNN who dispenses medical advice with a breezy style appropriately suited to the brief two-minute segments of television.

While he has earned praise for his television persona, there are undeniable drawbacks that would limit his effectiveness as an advocate for the comprehensive health care reform this country urgently needs.

We need a Surgeon General serious about health care reform.

Politico thinks so:

Daschle is planning a major grassroots push to build public support for his plan outside Washington, possibly with spokesman-in-chief Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN at the helm as surgeon general.

If so, that would explain why the OFB were so vehement in their insistence that a focus on Gupta was an irrelevant side issue, wouldn't it?

ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES

COOPER: So, Sanjay, the third case of mad cow in the United States, how concerned should someone at home be?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the short answer is probably not concerned at all, really, Anderson.

It's -- it's kind of interesting. On one hand, we used to say, here in the United States, mad cow disease was a disease of other countries, didn't worry about it. But after December of 2003, we had three cases in three years now. So, I think people are -- their -- their guard is up, for sure.

YMMV, but I'd say no. Chris Mooney:

Consider the great 2002 cloning hoax. In the media lull following Christmas, one Brigitte Boisselier -- the "scientific director" of Clonaid, a company linked to the UFO-obsessed Raelian sect, and already a semi-celebrity who had been profiled in The New York Times Magazine -- announced the birth of the world's first cloned baby. At her press conference, covered live by CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, Boisselier could not even produce a picture of the alleged child -- "Eve" -- much less independent scientific verification of her claims. She instead promised proof within eight or nine days. Needless to say, the whole affair should have made the press wary.

Nevertheless, a media frenzy ensued, with journalists occasionally mocking and questioning the Raelians while allowing their claims to drive the coverage. CNN's medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, provided a case in point. When he interviewed Boisselier following her press conference, Gupta called Clonaid a group with "the capacity to clone" and told Boisselier, credulously, "We are certainly going to be anxiously awaiting to see some of the proof from these independent scientists [the Raelians] next week."

Perhaps most outspoken in criticizing the press during the Clonaid fiasco was Arthur Caplan, the University of Pennsylvania biomedical ethicist. As one of the nation's most quoted bioethicists, Caplan had the advantage of actual access to the media during the feeding frenzy. Yet that familiarity made little difference. As Caplan complained in an MSNBC.com column following the Raelians' announcement, no one wanted to listen to his skepticism because that would have required dropping the story: "As soon as I heard about the Raelians' cloning claim, I knew it was nonsense," wrote Caplan. "The media have shown themselves incapable of covering the key social and intellectual phenomena of the 21st century, namely the revolution in genetics and biology."

Caplan observed that Clonaid had no scientific peer-reviewed publications to prove its techniques were up to snuff, and that cloning had barely worked in live animal species, and then only after countless initial failures. Nevertheless, Clonaid had implausibly claimed a stunning success rate -- five pregnancies in ten attempts -- in its experiments.

The Clonaid fiasco shows the media at their absolute worst in covering scientific issues. Reviewing the coverage two years later is a painful exercise. As even Gupta later admitted, "I think if we had known . . . that there was going to be no proof at this press conference, I think that we probably would have pulled the plug." Later on, even the Raelians themselves reportedly laughed at how easy it was to get free publicity.

Now, from the Village perspective, credulous beliefs are exactly what you want; exhibit A: WMDs. In fact, I'd say, given the famously rigorous Obama vetting process, that must have been Gupta's primary (perhaps only) qualification. But is it what you want?

In Sicko "fact check," CNN's Gupta falsely claimed his source's "only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University":

Contrary to Gupta's assertion on Larry King Live that Keckley's "only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University," Keckley is affiliated with Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, part of a global audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services group of firms. Keckley is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions states on its website that "it delivers research on and develops solutions to some of our nation's most pressing health care and public health related challenges." As Moore noted on Larry King Live, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions is also "connected" to Tommy Thompson. The center's website lists Thompson as the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions' independent chairman.

Keckley is also a Republican contributor, as Moore claimed. According OpenSecrets.org, Keckley has donated $8,500 to Republican candidates or party committees since 1990, including $1,000 to Sen. Bob Corker (TN), $2,000 to the Republican Party of Tennessee, $2,000 to Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN), and $500 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN). During that period, he has made no donations to Democratic candidates or party committees that have been reported to the Federal Election Commission.

Obama Wants Journalist Gupta for Surgeon General

By Howard Kurtz
President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.