Jerome Adams promises to put science ahead of politics as surgeon general

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Indiana has often won low grades for the overall health of its residents. However, a group of Hoosiers, led by Vice President Mike Pence, is having a major impact on the future of federal health care policy. Dwight Adams/IndyStar

WASHINGTON — Jerome Adams, Indiana’s state health commissioner, pledged Tuesday to put science ahead of politics if he becomes the next surgeon general.

But while science is critical, Adams told senators at his confirmation hearing, it has to be applied in a “sympathetic and empathetic way.”

Adams said that’s what he did when helping establish a needle exchange program in Southern Indiana to contain the 2015 HIV outbreak linked to the injection of oral painkillers, the largest such outbreak in the nation’s history.

Over a beer and sandwich with the Scott County sheriff, Adams said, the sheriff shared his concerns about both a needle exchange and the “revolving door of his jail.” Adams explained how the program could connect people with care.

“I always want to lead with science … but I also want to listen to what stakeholders are saying and what patients are saying,” he said. “That’s the lesson that I learned.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said President Donald Trump’s dismissal in April of Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general appointed by President Barack Obama who was not finished with his term, showed a “lack of respect for that office and the independence of science.”

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Other Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee cited other concerns, including Trump’s suggestion that vaccines can cause autism and the resignation last month of six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS who said Trump doesn’t care about the issue.

“The next surgeon general must be an advocate for science and facts and must be able to stand up and correct misinformation coming out of this administration,” said Murray, the panel’s top Democrat.

When Murray asked Adams whether he understands the importance of “picking science over politics,” he gave her an emphatic yes.

The hearing, which also included the nominees for four assistant secretary positions at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was largely friendly.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told Adams she’s certain he was nominated for the job because of his testimony last year at a hearing she conducted on opioid use among seniors.

“I’m absolutely certain of that, too, senator,” Adams replied to laughter.

After getting an impromptu hug at the witness table from “my beautiful little daughter, Millie,” Adams said in his prepared statement that one of his priorities as surgeon general would be addressing the opioid addiction crisis. A White House commission called for a national emergency over the opioid epidemic in a report released Monday.

Adams also said he would make “wellness and community and employer engagement a centerpiece of my agenda.”

“I promise you that I will continue my strong and well-documented track record of reaching out to everyone, regardless of their politics, beliefs, culture or geography,” he said.

Adams, an African-American, praised Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay person to be elected to the Senate, saying he knows what it’s like to be “the only minority in the room.”

Adams grew up on a family farm in Maryland and made Indiana home after attending Indiana University School of Medicine and the University of California, Berkley.

An anesthesiologist who has a master’s degree in public health, Adams was appointed to his current position in 2014 by then-Gov. Mike Pence. If confirmed, as expected, for a four-year term, he would be the latest Pence person to join the Trump administration to work on health care. Seema Verma, the Indiana health care consultant who worked with Pence on Indiana’s alternative Medicaid program, runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Four former Pence aides also have significant policy posts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Sometimes called the “nation’s doctor,” the surgeon general oversees the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

“He really is responsible for helping to highlight evidence-based solutions to some of our most difficult public health issues,” said Paul Halverson, dean of Indiana University’s Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health.

Murthy, the last surgeon general, issued a landmark report in 2016 placing drug and alcohol addiction alongside other major public health crisis of the past half-century.

But the post has diminished in importance since Surgeon General C. Everett Koop spoke out against smoking and AIDS in the 1980s, said Tom Miller, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Good people may try to do things, but it just hasn’t had a big impact on our health policy for several decades,” he said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., urged Adams to use the position to make sure people in the end stages of life get only the care they want.

Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., said Adams should address gun violence, which the American Medical Association has called a health hazard.

Adams, a gun owner, said there are evidence-based programs that can lower gun violence if people are “willing to stop demonizing each other.”

The Senate panel is scheduled to vote on Adams’ nomination Wednesday. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the panel’s chairman, said the full Senate could take up the nomination “soon thereafter.”

Contact Maureen Groppe at mgroppe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @mgroppe.

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