August 12, 2009: White House Health Care Adviser Rebuts ‘Deadly Doctor’ Claims

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a senior health care adviser in the Obama administration, rebuts claims that he is a “deadly doctor” who advocates wholesale euthanasia for America’s senior citizens (see July 23-24, 2009, July 28, 2009, and August 7, 2009). Emanuel, a medical ethicist, does not own a television or have an Internet connection and so remained unaware of the accusations about his medical beliefs for weeks. “I couldn’t believe this was happening to me,” he says. Both Emanuel and Time reporter Michael Scherer point out that Emanuel has worked throughout his career to oppose euthanasia and increase care for dying patients. “It is incredible how much one’s reputation can be besmirched and taken out of context,” Emanuel says. Scherer notes that the New York Post op-ed by Betsy McCaughey (see July 23-24, 2009) used “selective and misleading quotes from Emanuel’s 200 or so published academic papers,” and soon “went viral” on the Internet and among conservative opponents of health care reform. Scherer writes: “The attacks on Emanuel are a reminder that there is a narrow slice of Americans who not only don’t trust government, but also have come to regard it as a dark conspirator in their lives. This peculiar brand of distrust helps create the conditions for fast-moving fear-mongering, especially on complex and emotionally charged topics like the life and death of the elderly and infirm.” Scherer notes that throughout his career, Emanuel has wrestled with the ethics of medical care, often wading into horrific hypothetical situations such as how to choose who gets a single kidney if there are three dying patients in need of it and no way to procure two others. “No one who has read what I have done for 25 years would come to the conclusions that have been put out there,” says Emanuel. [Time, 8/12/2009]