Vivek Murthy, M.D., the U. S. Surgeon General, will be taking tweets today from people with questions about public health issues. This is National Public Health Week and he'll be available to answer your questions on a variety of public health topics. If you want information or his opinions on things like vaccinations, the flu, health effects of global warming, nutrition or any one of a number of other topics, tweet your thoughts to him.
Want to ask if doctors should question their patients about whether they have guns in their homes? Have a question on a whether "friend" of yours might have a sexually transmitted infection? Want information on viral diseases like HIV, the hepatitises, chikungunya (a new virus spreading through the Caribbean and now beginning to infect people in the U. S.), Ebola, West Nile or others? Have questions on smoking vs. vaping? Obamacare or single-payer health insurance? The obesity or diabetes epidemics? All are fair game.
Follow below the orange U. S. Public Health Service curlicue for more information and directions on how to contact him.
Murthy is the (fairly) recently appointed Surgeon General. You remember that his application was stalled until some Republicans stopped using their thumbs for self rectal exams and approved his nomination. After being sworn in, he spent some time touring the country getting a feel for his position and chatting with Americans in various areas of the country in town hall meetings. He was introducing himself and getting input from them. Now, having returned to Washington and taken up the reigns, he's ready to hear from you.
Part of the Surgeon General's role is to educate and make recommendations to the American public about health issues. To that end, he's soliciting questions today from the citizenry. And this is your chance to get some information right from the Surgeon's mouth about the topic that interests you.
Use the hashtag #AskTheSurgeonGeneral to direct questions to him. He'll be replying tomorrow in the afternoon via video feed from his Twitter account @Surgeon_General. You can submit questions up to 2:30 PM today. You may want to check @Surgeon_General early this afternoon to see when the video reply session begins. I believe it starts @2 PM, but I'm not absolutely sure.