Candidates for top health posts to face tough questioning by Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Difficult issues of cloning and how to best prepare doctors for terrorism face a surgeon and radiologist seeking Senate approval for the nation's top health posts. <br><br>President

Wednesday, March 27th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Difficult issues of cloning and how to best prepare doctors for terrorism face a surgeon and radiologist seeking Senate approval for the nation's top health posts.

President Bush on Tuesday nominated Dr. Richard Carmona, a Tucson, Ariz., trauma surgeon who moonlights on the SWAT team, to be surgeon general and Johns Hopkins University radiologist Elias Zerhouni to direct the National Institutes of Health.

They're rags-to-riches candidates with Hollywoodesque credentials.

Now Carmona is ready to assume the nation's health bully pulpit, the surgeon general's job that traditionally means cajoling, even scolding, Americans to improve their health. On Bush's priority list is for Carmona to push a national fitness campaign.

Zerhouni stands to assume control of the nation's largest biomedical research agency. He will have to figure out how to administer more than $20 billion in grants and assure new discoveries get to patients quickly.

But the Senate must approve both nominees, and while Tuesday brought mostly praise for the candidates, the hearings can be potential minefields.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat whose committee oversees health nominees, pledged prompt hearings. He called Zerhouni ``a distinguished scientist'' and said he looked forward to learning more about Carmona, a surprise pick.

Bush made clear that he expects Zerhouni to hew to a careful balance on what research can be done with embryonic stem cells _ only a limited amount _ and to opposition of the cloning of human tissue.

``Dr. Zerhouni shares my view that human life is precious and should not be exploited or destroyed for the benefits of others,'' Bush said.

But how much cloning should be allowed, and whether Bush's rules on embryonic stem cells are too strict or not strict enough, are controversial issues in Congress and are sure to arise in Zerhouni's confirmation hearings.

Zerhouni emigrated to the United States from Algeria 27 years ago with his medical degree, ``little money, no family and no friends.'' Then he invented a better way for doctors to peer deep into a patient's body, spun off a successful medical company and became a top administrator at Hopkins, one of the nation's most respected medical schools.

The top job at NIH has languished vacant for more than two years, prolonging vacancies at the helms of six institutes within the NIH, as Bush looked for a suitable candidate.

Zerhouni, 50, has not published his views on stem cells or human cloning. But the issues were discussed in his interviews for job, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told reporters.

Thompson said there was no litmus test for the two nominees, but the president's anti-abortion position was another topic in screening candidates.

For his part, Carmona, 52, can expect all kinds of grilling _ from his views on teen sex to condoms _ largely stemming from disagreements politicians have had with past surgeons general. David Satcher, President Clinton's holdover surgeon general whose term expired in February, clashed with the Bush administration last year over a sex education report he released that challenged the success of teaching abstinence and urged promoting birth control.

Bush charged Carmona to focus on the problem of drug and alcohol abuse and with leading a national ``healthy living campaign.''

Carmona, a high school dropout, was a Green Beret in Vietnam and later valedictorian of his medical school class. He set up Tucson's first trauma center and, as a part-time police officer, once dangled from a helicopter to save a patient and shot a murder suspect on the side of the road.

He also has broad expertise in terrorism preparedness and hopes to make that a big focus of the job.

One of the surgeon general's duties is administering the 5,600-member Public Health Commission Corps, which was deployed in both the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks. What changes Carmona would make and just how health officials should account for the billions they're spending preparing for terrorism are sure to come up.