Obituaries (March 2013)
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:
Obituaries
“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” ––William Shakespeare
C. Everett Koop, 96, U.S. surgeon general 1982-1989, died on February 27, 2013 in Hanover, New Hampshire. Born in Brooklyn, Koop was admitted to Dartmouth College in Hanover at age 16. He studied medicine at Cornell Medical School in upstate New York, served an internship at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and a surgical fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania hospital, then studied pediatric surgery for a year at Boston Children’s Hospital. Becoming only the seventh pediatric surgery specialist in the U.S., Koop returned to Philadelphia to become surgeon-in-chief at Children’s Hospital. Founding the first neo-natal surgery unit in the U.S. and cofounding the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, Koop in The Right to Live, The Right to Die (1976) warned against “a progression of thinking in this country from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen.” This influenced then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan to appoint Koop surgeon general upon Koop’s retirement from Children’s Hospital, but brought Koop into philosophical conflict with the utilitarian theories advanced by Animal Liberation author Peter Singer. Paradoxically, Koop as surgeon general took a utilitarian position in frequent outspoken defense of animal research. Koop encouraged expanded efforts to study AIDS in chimpanzees; when chimpanzees proved to be largely immune to the human form of AIDS, Koop argued that decades of studies of retroviruses in animals were nonetheless essential to understanding AIDS. Koop found more common ground with advocates of eating less meat. “Your choice of diet can influence your long term health prospects more than any other action you might take,” he warned. After his second four-year term as surgeon general expired, Koop in 1990-1991 lobbied on behalf of the Cosmetics, Toiletries, and Fragrances Association against a bill twice passed by the California legislature which would have banned animal testing. The bill was vetoed in 1990 by California Governor George Deukmejian, and in 1991 by his successor, Governor Pete Wilson. Retiring to Hanover, Koop in 1992 founded and endowed the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College. There, Koop invested much of his personal wealth into developing computer programs which––even at the initial reported price of $35,000 per set––soon replaced much animal use in advanced anatomical study, permitting examination of any part of the human body in slices the thickness of a microscopic slide.
Wendy Wilson Garraghty, 61, died of cancer on January 22, 2013 at her home in Franklin, Massachusetts. Executive director of Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue since 2002, Garraghty brought to the job a background as analyst in the Bank of Boston treasury division, and earlier, as a teacher at the Powhatan Correctional Center, a 600-man maximum security prison in Virginia. Garraghty became acquainted with Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue as an adopter, then served as membership director and as a board member before stepping up to head the organization. Founded by Joan Puglia and Susan Foster in 1985, Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue has rehomed more than 8,000 golden retrievers. The first Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue shelter opened in Hudson, Massachusetts, in 1996. The present 22-acre shelter complex opened in 2000.
Gloria Maycher Scott, 87, died on January 13, 2013 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, her home since 2010, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Born in Mississippi City, Mississippi, she graduated from high school in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Relocating to Washington D.C. in 1967, she and realtor Joanna Harkin cofounded the rescue organization Alliance for Stray Animals & People in 1998.
