Koop is well known for four facets of his work:
* Abortion: Though Koop was philosophically opposed to abortion on personal religious grounds, he declined to state that abortion procedures performed by qualified medical professionals posed a substantial health risk to women, despite political pressure to endorse such a position.
* Tobacco: In 1988 he published a report stating that nicotine has an addictiveness similar to that of heroin or cocaine. Koop's report was somewhat unexpected, especially by those who expected him to maintain the status quo in regard to his office's position on tobacco products. Koop also began the practice of placing warning labels on all packs of cigarettes which list the negative health effects.
* AIDS: Koop's tenure included the period during which public health authorities began to take notice of AIDS. Koop wrote the official U.S. policy on the syndrome, and took unprecedented action in mailing AIDS information to every U.S. household. Many were unhappy with the way in which he dealt with gay sex and the risk of infection through anal sex; Koop was unapologetic and explained his position in terms of such activities entailing risks several orders of magnitude greater than other means of transmission. Koop also infuriated former supporters on the right for insisting on sex education in schools, possibly as early as the third grade, including later instruction regarding the proper use of condoms to combat the spread of AIDS. While straightforwardly telling the public that this disease exists was controversial, Koop was criticized by health activists for a more subtle shift in public consciousness. Previously, government health agencies were expected to act to develop cures and vaccines for diseases. Under Koop, this was reduced to a "duty to warn".
* Baby Doe and the Rights of Handicapped Children: In April of 1982, a child born in Bloomington, Indiana was diagnosed as having Down syndrome, as well as esophageal atresia with tracheoesophageal fistula. Six days later, after court involvement and parental discussion involving disagreement among physicians about whether or not to treat the baby or let him die, the baby died, having been denied surgical treatment to correct his esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula. Baby Doe, as he would be known, became a symbol for children with birth defects, handicapped infants, and the debate over infanticide. Koop was initially involved neither officially nor unofficially with the Baby Doe case, but still took special interest in it. As a pediatric surgeon in Philadelphia, he and his colleagues had operated on 475 such babies during his 35 years there, with ever increasing survival rates. During his last eight years in active practice, Koop never lost a full-term baby upon whom he operated to correct esophageal atresia. It was from this that Koop became actively involved in championing policies to protect newborns with handicaps.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_everett_koop
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