Los Angeles Times reporter Mike Dorning has some important information (3/6/09) absent from coverage of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's recent surgeon general candidacy--"For several years, Gupta has been co-anchor of a CNN-produced healthcare show distributed monthly via flat-screen TVs provided free to doctor's offices":

The show is sponsored by healthcare, consumer and pharmaceutical companies that want to get their message directly to patients, according to the website of AccentHealth, a privately held company that distributes the programs and sells them to advertisers.

Dr. Quentin Young--who heads Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that advocates for single-payer, Canadian-style national health insurance and other changes in the present system--and other critics cited occasions when Gupta favorably mentioned sponsors' brand-name drugs.

"His record is not a good one here," Young said.

While Dorning gives space to such unsupported CNN platitudes as "Gupta's on-air comments had always been under the editorial control of CNN and unrelated to any advertising contracts" and "Dr. Gupta has no relationship with the advertisers of the program--monetarily, editorially or otherwise," regular FAIR readers have known of Gupta's untrustworthiness for years; for more critique of CNN's medical coverage, see our current Action Alert: "CNN: Single-Payer Is So '90s: Medical Reporter Warns Against 'Government-Run Health System'" (3/12/09)

Tags: CNN, Sanjay Gupta

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