Leroy Edgar Burney 1097201 213712490 2008-05-20T15:02:55Z DIDouglass 656202 /* External links */ [[Image:Leroy Edgar Burney, photo portrait as surgeon general.jpg|thumb|right|Leroy Burney]] '''Leroy Edgar Burney''' ([[1906]]-[[1998]]) was the [[Surgeon General of the United States]] from [[1956]] to [[1961]]. ==Early history== Burney was born on [[December 31]], [[1906]], in Burney, [[Indiana]], a town founded by his great-grandfather. He began premedical coursework at [[Butler University]] ([[1924]]-[[1926|26]]) and completed both undergraduate and medical training at [[Indiana University Bloomington|Indiana University]] ([[Bachelor of Science|S.B.]], [[1928]]; [[Doctor of Medicine|M.D.]], [[1930]]). An introduction to the [[United States Public Health Service|Public Health Service]] (PHS) came through a one-year [[intern]]ship at the [[Chicago]] Marine Hospital. Initiation into the world of [[public health]] followed when Burney took advantage of a fellowship to study at the [[Johns Hopkins University]] School of Hygiene and Public Health ([[Master of Science|M.S.]], [[1931]]). Courtesy of the renowned [[epidemiology|epidemiologist]] Dr. [[W. H. Frost]] and the [[Rockefeller Foundation]], Burney was allowed to extend his studies for six months of field work at the Joint Health Department of [[Charlottesville, Virginia]], [[immunization (medicine)|immunizing]] preschool children against [[diphtheria]]. From Charlottesville, Burney applied for and was accepted into the PHS Regular Corps as an Assistant Surgeon ([[1932]]). His area of expertise would be public health administration at the state and local level, the front lines of public health. Like many of his generation at PHS, Burney came up through the ranks of then-Surgeon General [[Thomas Parran, Jr.]]’s [[venereal disease]] control programs, receiving specialized training at the [[New York]] Marine Hospital ([[1934]]) and assisting in the management of rapid treatment centers around the country. Burney helped establish the first PHS mobile venereal disease [[clinic]], in [[Brunswick, Georgia]] ([[1937]]-[[1939|39]]), bringing access to treatment for [[African American]]s, whom [[Jim Crow law|Jim Crow]] [[racial segregation|segregation]] excluded from the predominantly white locations of other facilities. Burney spent most of [[World War II]] stateside, where he served as Assistant Chief of PHS’s Division of State Relations ([[1943]]-[[1944|44]]), except for a five-month detail to the [[United States Navy|Navy]], where he traveled to the [[Mediterranean]] on behalf of the [[War Shipping Administration]], to address [[infectious disease]] problems affecting ports. After the war, Burney continued his work with state and county health departments, directing PHS’s [[New Orleans]] district office ([[1945]]) and then accepting a detail to be State Health Commissioner and Secretary of [[Indiana]]'s new State Board of Health (1945-[[1954|54]]) and teach at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In 1954 Burney returned to PHS as an Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Chief of the Bureau of State Services, overseeing grants-in-aid to the states while being prepared for leadership by then-Surgeon General [[Leonard A. Scheele]]. ==As Surgeon General== When Surgeon General Scheele stepped down in August [[1956]], [[President of the United States|President]] [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] nominated Burney on a [[recess appointment]], and was sworn in as Surgeon General on [[August 8]], 1956, and later confirmed by the [[United States Senate|Senate]] in January [[1957]]. Surgeon General Burney applied his administrative know-how to steer PHS successfully through institutional growing pains as the agency responded to new and, at times, conflicting demands from the public, professional and voluntary advocacy groups, the parent [[United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare|Department]], and the [[United States Congress|Congress]]. The key issues of the day were [[environmental health]] and access to health services, the former driven by widely-shared alarm over deteriorating environmental conditions and [[nuclear fallout|fallout]] from the atmospheric [[nuclear testing|testing of nuclear weapons]] and the latter by expectations that [[universal health care|national health insurance]] would soon be realized. In many ways the [[Kerr-Mills Act]] of [[1960]], which authorized government financing of services for [[elderly|senior citizens]] without adequate means to pay for care, prefigured the [[Medicare (United States)|Medicare]] and [[Medicaid]] programs that would transform national policy during the following decades. In response, Burney mustered his leadership to gather facts, draft plans for modernizing PHS and take action. Under future Surgeon General [[William H. Stewart]], the Office of the Surgeon General’s Division of Public Health Methods staffed a number of investigatory and advisory bodies whose reports still inform policy decisionmaking, including the Secretary’s Consultants on Medical Research and Education (Bayne-Jones report, [[1958]]); the Surgeon General’s Consultant Group on Medical Education (Bane report, [[1959]]); the Surgeon General’s Report on Environmental Health Problems submitted to the [[U.S. House Committee on Appropriations|House Appropriations Subcommittee]] (1959); and the Study Group on the Mission and Organization of the Public Health Service (Hundley report, 1960). In addition, during July 1957 Public Health Methods began implementing the [[National Health Survey Act]] of 1956, conducting the first periodic national surveys of chronic disease [[morbidity rate|morbidity]] and health services: the triennial [[Health Interview Survey]], and the mobile Health Examination Survey (which in [[1971]] became the [[Health and Nutrition Examination Survey]]). The Hundley Committee report urged that PHS shed the institutional remnants of its early missions (the hospitals and [[quarantine]]) and reorganize to better fulfill its post-[[1940]] mandate to promote civilian public health. Unable to obtain formal authority from Congress but with permission from the Secretary of [[United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare|DHEW]], Burney began reorienting PHS structure to reflect its new functions. The Bureau of State Services was divided into two parts, one devoted to issues related to services delivery, under the rubric of "[[community health]]," and the other devoted to [[environmental health]]. Environmental programs were consolidated and upgraded, with new Division-level units created for [[radiological weapon|radiological health]] (1957) and [[air pollution]] (1960) and a new [[National Advisory Committee on Radiation]]. With the exception of the multidisciplinary [[National Institute of Mental Health]], institutional boundaries were redrawn to distinguish services-oriented programs at the Bureau of Medical Services from research at the [[National Institutes of Health]] and from information gathering units such as the [[National Library of Medicine]] (groundbreaking for [[Bethesda, Maryland|Bethesda]] facility in June, 1959) and the [[National Center for Health Statistics]] (established in August, 1960, comprising Public Health Method’s surveys group and PHS’s National Vital Statistics Division). Surgeon General Burney also refashioned his position to emphasize his role as a spokesperson on behalf of public health. In 1957 and again in 1959, he was the first Federal official to publicly identify [[cigarette]] smoke as a cause of [[lung cancer]], issuing statements that paved the way for his successor, Surgeon General [[Luther Leonidas Terry|Luther L. Terry]]. Traditional public health functions remained no less important. During his tenure Burney played a leadership role in public health affairs both internationally (chairing the U.S. delegation to the 1959 World Health Assembly) and domestically (serving as President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers). In addition, he supported an effective response by the [[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention|Communicable Disease Center]] to the 1957 [[Asian flu|Asian influenza]] [[pandemic]] and gave ongoing, measured support to the development of the oral [[polio vaccine]] developed by [[Albert Sabin]]. ==Later history== On [[January 29]], [[1961]], shortly after President [[John F. Kennedy]]’s inauguration, Surgeon General Burney stepped down from his post to give the new [[United States Democratic Party|Democratic]] administration the opportunity to nominate its own choice for Surgeon General. Reforms and ideas raised during Burney’s administration would become the foundations of health policy under Presidents Kennedy and [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]. After retiring from PHS, Burney served as Vice President for Health Sciences at [[Temple University]] and on the Board of the Milbank Memorial Fund until his retirement in [[1990]]. He died on [[July 31]], [[1998]], in [[Park Ridge, Illinois]]. ==External links== * [http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/history/bioburney.htm surgeongeneral.gov] {{start box}} {{succession box| title=[[Surgeon General of the United States]]| before=[[Leonard A. Scheele]]| after=[[Luther Leonidas Terry]]| years=[[August 1]], [[1956]]–[[January 29]], [[1961]]| }} {{end box}} ''This article was originally based on [[public domain]] [http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/history/bioburney.htm text] written by the U.S. government.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Burney, Leroy Edgar}} [[Category:Indiana University alumni]] [[Category:Surgeons General of the United States]] [[Category:1906 births]] [[Category:1998 deaths]] [[Category:Butler University alumni]]