Ex-Surgeon General Koop Dies at 96

C. Everett Koop, the Reagan-era surgeon general who brought both AIDS awareness and an epic beard to America, has passed away at his home in Hanover, New Hampshire, officials at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth announced Monday. Koop served as surgeon general from 1981 to 1989 and is best known for his frank, 36-page 1986 report on AIDS that discussed how the disease spreads, how it does not spread, and how people can protect themselves. An eight-page version of the report was mailed to every household in America in 1988. Koop remained head of the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth into his later years, but told reporters at a news conference in 2010 that he was "very, very deaf" and legally blind.