Bush appointee politicized public health.

The Washington Post reports that William R. Steiger, a Bush appointee, blocked a 2006 surgeon general’s report that “described the link between poverty and poor health” because “the report did not promote the administration’s policy accomplishments.” Steiger — who has no “background or expertise in medicine or public health” — is “a specialist in education and scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties President Bush and Vice President Cheney.”