Former Surgeon General honored by HPER

C. Everett Koop, M.D., has received the 2010 Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award by the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.

Koop was the chief spokesman for AIDS while serving as U.S. Surgeon General in the 1980s.

William L. Yarber, RCAP senior director, said the award recognizes Koop’s “bold” and “courageous” actions taken to educate society about AIDS, according to an IU press release.

Yarber, along with Jeanne White Ginder, White’s mother, presented the award to Koop Wednesday at the Dartmouth Medical School where Koop is the Senior Scholar of the C. Everett Koop Institute.

During his time as U.S. Surgeon General, he published the Surgeon General’s Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which provided information regarding how HIV is transmitted and how Americans can protect themselves from the virus. He also promoted the use of condoms, which was unusual for that time, according to the release.

“It was really dramatic because it made the problem real and acknowledged how AIDS/HIV was transmitted,” Yarber said in the release. “That was before the Internet, so when the government came out with the report, calling for sex education for children beginning at the grade three, and the importance of using condoms, it was landmark.”

In 1988, Koop mailed “Understanding AIDS” to every household in the country to help spread awareness and prevention.

“The information was very plain-spoken and nonjudgmental about how HIV is transmitted and prevented,” Yarber said in the release. “He was so visible and so courageous. He is a religious man with some traditional values, yet he put politics aside to place the health needs of the public first. Under very difficult circumstances, he stood for the same principles as Ryan, whose major message was to increase AIDS awareness and to end AIDS discrimination and stigma.”

— Lindsey Erdody