FORMER SURGEON GENERAL CALLS FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN U.S.

CULLOWHEE - When Dr. Joycelyn Elders was forced to resign as surgeon
general in 1992, most of the 300 students attending her talk Thursday at
Western Carolina University were in grammar school. So, when one student
asked what happened, it was the adults in the room who smiled knowingly. "I
was fired," Elders said. "My focus was on adolescents . and I was concerned
about adolescents who were becoming parents before they were becoming adults."

She explained why she believes adolescents should have access to condoms,
calling it "harm reduction" because condoms can prevent pregnancy and
sexually-transmitted diseases.

"I was called the condom queen for that, and I didn't mind being called the
condom queen, as long as everyone would use one."

But, she told the students, the final blow came when she made remarks about
masturbation being safer for adolescents than sex, and she drew a hearty
laugh when she repeated the lines that got her into trouble a decade ago.

But Elders had more to say than a simple reiteration of the beliefs that
cost her a job. She urged students to work to ensure universal access to
health care in the United States.

"We are the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't provide
universal access to health care for all its people," she said.

But access to health care goes beyond health insurance, she said. Often,
low-income people don't have transportation to the doctor, and rural areas
face a dire shortage of physicians.

"Most importantly, though, we've got to educate our people to be healthy,"
she said. "We have to teach children about good nutrition and the
importance of exercise. You can teach them there are places on their bodies
that nobody is allowed to touch and that they should tell somebody if
anybody does."

Children who are molested are more likely to engage in risky behaviors such
as drug and alcohol use, to suffer depression or commit suicide, she said.

When a student asked whether chewing tobacco is safer than cigarettes,
Elders told him all tobacco is dangerous.

"Nicotine is an addiction, and it's a pediatric addiction," she said. "If
you haven't become addicted by age 19, you probably won't. Every day, 3,000
young people start using tobacco, and 1,000 of them will die (from it)."

Elders also affirmed her support for stem-cell research, a woman's right to
choose to end her pregnancy and the decriminalization of marijuana.

"We could regulate marijuana the same way we do alcohol," she said. "All
we're doing now is making criminals out of young people. We spend $18
billion a year on the war on drugs, and we've been fighting it for 30
years. In a war, somebody's supposed to win sometime."

Elders also blasted the "lawyers, accountants and politicians who we have
allowed to take over our health-care system."

Before she ended her talk, Elders charged the students to become active in
the effort to make the health-care system better.

"You have to show the people in power that we have a crisis," she said.
"And we do have a crisis. We have billions and billions of dollars for war.
We never run out. We need to redirect that money."