Surgeon General forced to resign by White House

The White House today surrendered to Republican pressure by forcing the resignation of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, whose outspoken views about drugs and sexuality had made her the target of a conservative campaign to oust her from office. The dismissal of Dr. Elders came as some news organizations were preparing to report that at a United Nations conference on AIDS earlier this month, she had condoned the idea of teaching schoolchildren to masturbate as a way of avoiding the spread of the AIDS virus.

Her comments, in response to a question from a member of her audience, were but the latest brush with controversy by Dr. Elders, who served as head of Arkansas's health department when President Clinton was Governor.

source: Article 'Surgeon General Forced to Resign by White House' by Douglas Jehl; www.nytimes.com/1994/12/10/us/surgeon-general-forced-to-resign-by-white-house.html; NYTimes.com; 10 December 1994