In a tale of alleged fraud and political access, Dan Christensen of the Broward Bulldog in South Florida (and no relation to this blog post’s author), writes about cardiologist Zachariah P. Zachariah who has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of “using nonpublic information to make more than a half-million dollars in illegal profits from stock trades in 2005.”
George W. Bush was reportedly interested in appointing Zachariah to be U.S. surgeon general, until White House counsel learned he was under investigation by the SEC.
Zachariah would have replaced Richard Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., who testified to Congress in 2007 that the Bush administration had let politics supersede science and forbid him to speak publicly about some issues, including stem cell research, and watered down reports, including one about the dangers of second-hand smoke.
