US surgeon general was warned by his mom to avoid politics, but he jumped into the fray anyway

MIAMI (AP) — The dated gold and silver trophies packed in the china cabinet of Dr. Vivek Murthy’s childhood home still boast the surgeon general’s many talents, from dance performances to math competitions.

Growing up in a Florida suburb, it seemed to his family that Murthy could succeed at just about anything.

But when a middle school world history teacher suggested he might one day make a good secretary of state, his mom staged an intervention.

“She got really worried,” Murthy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press last month, while his mom giggled at his retelling of the story. “She called my dad. She said, ‘You need to come home and talk to him because he’s thinking about going into politics.’”

Now, in his second term as the “Nation’s Doctor,” Murthy hasn’t run from the political,, as his mother hoped. He’s charged toward it.

He has taken on powerful tech companies, accusing their addictive algorithms and dangerous content of negatively affecting children’s mental health. Earlier this year, he went as far as asking Congress to approve a surgeon general’s warning label on social media, on platforms such as Instagram or TikTok. In June, Murthy released his most politically charged report yet, declaring that gun deaths and injuries in America had reached such critical mass that they have created a public health crisis.

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