Remember a couple of days ago when the Surgeon General of the United States of America, Dr. Regina Benjamin was asked by a reporter about what she thought about the fact that panic-striken Californians had stripped the state’s pharmacies’ shelves of their supply of iodine, trying to protect themselves from radiation drifting over from Japan? 

Well, now she’s trying to clarify what she said.

Tuesday, while on a visit to California, Benjamin told a Bay-area reporter that:

We can’t be over-prepared — we learned that with 9/11, we learned that with Katrina and we learned that this week with the tsunami. Even if it’s one life we save by being prepared, it’s worth it.

It’s a precaution.

The Surgeon General of the U.S. went on to tell the reporter she had not heard about the iodide panic.

Californians were stocking up on Potassium iodide, or KI, because it can prevent the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine.

Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, Los Angeles County’s public health chief, held an opposite view from Benjamin:

We want to urge you not to take potassium iodide unnecessarily.

It’s definitely not recommended as a precautionary medication.

Fielding noted that some people may be allergic and suffer side effects including intestinal upset, nausea and rashes.

Yesterday, Kate Migliaccio, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Health and Human Services, sent out an e-mail in an attempt to clarify Benjamin’s (and the government’s) position:

She commented that it is always important to be prepared, however she wouldn’t recommend that anyone go out and purchase KI for themselves at this time.

It’s important for residents who have concerns to listen to state and local health authorities.

 So, Who is Dr. Regina Benjamin and why is she Obama’s Surgeon General?

According to the website of the Surgeon General:

Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA is the 18th Surgeon General of the United States…Dr. Benjamin oversees the operational command of 6,500 uniformed health officers who serve in locations around the world to promote, protect, and advance the health of the American People.

Dr. Benjamin is Founder and Former CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama, former Associate Dean for Rural Health at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile, and immediate Past Chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States In 1995, she was the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees. She served as President of the American Medical Association Education and Research Foundation and Chair of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA). In 2002 she became President of the Medical Association State of Alabama, making her the first African American female president of a State Medical Society in the United States.

Dr. Benjamin has a BS in chemistry from Xavier University, New Orleans; MD degree from the University of Alabama, Birmingham; an MBA from Tulane University and eleven honorary doctorates. She attended Morehouse School of Medicine and completed her family medicine residency in Macon, Ga. She established a clinic in a small fishing village in Alabama to help its uninsured residents. Dr. Benjamin persevered through Hurricane Georges in 1998, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and a devastating fire, in 2006, often putting up her own money to cover expenses. She also became nationally prominent for her business acumen and humane approach to preventive medicine.

Dr. Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She was a (1) Kellogg National Fellow and a (2) Rockefeller Next Generation Leader. Some of her numerous board memberships include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Catholic Health Association, and Morehouse School of Medicine.

Let’s look at 2 of those awards, shall we?

Per discoverthenetworks.org:

1.  Kellogg  National Fellow – Will Keith Kellogg, founder of the Kellogg cereal company, created the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in 1930. Being a man of principle, he generally opposed most forms of economic assistance, placing greater value on the long-term process of striving to overcome obstacles and become prosperous through hard work. Believing that education was the key to all long-term success, most of Kellogg’s early donations were geared towards helping children.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Foundation moved to the Far Lef and concentrated its focus on funding groups and causes that sought to counteract what they believed were the widespread injustices against minorities in the United States.

Per their website,the Foundation strives “to facilitate and assist in the process of social change for the betterment of people in society, particularly in the interest of the most vulnerable and marginalized populations.

The Kellogg Foundation is chaired by Hanmin Liu, a longtime community organizer who has been a Trustee on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Board of Directors since 1996. He is also President of the United States-China Educational Institute.

Among  recipients of Kellogg Foundation grants are:

the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center (can you say Soros?); the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN); the United States Student Association; the Waterkeeper Alliance; the Council on Foundations; Save The Children Fund; the American Civil Liberties Union; the Center for Community Change; World Vision International; the National Council of La Raza; the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund; and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

2.  Rockefeller Next Generation Leader – The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1913 by John D. Rockefeller, Sr.  Rockefeller was one of the “robber barons”, who gained his vast fortune as the founder and developer of the Standard Oil Company. According to the Foundation’s current President,

RF’s philanthropy is concentrated in 5 main program areas:

• Creativity and Culture
• Food Security
• Health Equity
• Working Communities
• Global Inclusion

The Rockefeller Foundation is a member of the Peace and Security Funders Group, an association of individual philanthropists and foundations that give money to anti-war and environmentalist organizations. They are also a member of the International Human Rights Funders Group, (as is George Soros’ Open Society Institute) a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to funding leftwing groups and causes.

Among those RF gives money to, are:

the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; the National Council of La Raza; the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; the American Civil Liberties Union; the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy; the Institute for Policy Studies; the Ploughshares Fund; the Council on Foundations; the Earth Trust Foundation; the Brennan Center for Justice; the American Land Institute; the Center for Community Change; the Islamic Circle of North America; Amnesty International; the Brennan Center for Justice; the Center for Community Change; the Center for Economic and Policy Research; and Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

As I asked you yesterday, Are you beginning to see a pattern here, gentle reader?