US Senate confirms Obama’s choice for surgeon general

Despite fierce opposition by gun rights advocates the US Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s nominee for surgeon general, Vivek H Murthy, in a 51-43 vote on 15 December.

Murthy, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and hospitalist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, had cleared the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ confirmation hearings in March. But his nomination was opposed by …