The US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps has come a long way since its inception in 1798 when Congress created the US Marine Hospital Service to care for sick and injured merchant seamen. This service evolved into a national marine hospital system staffed by a corps of physicians overseen by a Supervising Surgeon. In 1889, Congress formally named it the Commissioned Corps, a military branch administered by what eventually became renamed a Surgeon General.

Today, the Commission Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It serves under the US Public Health Service, a US Department of Health and Human Services division. Its staff is sent to various federal agencies, including the Indian Health Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department. Its mission is to “protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of our nation.”

In the 1980s, when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop embarked on an effort to make America a “smoke‐free society by the year 2000,” it marked the beginning of an expanded role for the Surgeon General. Since Koop, Surgeons General have seen themselves as “the nation’s doctor.” They have influenced Congress to pass legislation on ever‐expanding “health issues.” And because one can find a health angle for so many activities or substances that autonomous adults choose to engage in or consume, “public health policy” is bleeding into adults’ right to pursue happiness.