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MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS
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September, 2004
Twisted Bush Medical Nomination
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President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. David W. Hager to head up
the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory
Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time
its charter lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling
all eleven positions with new members. This position does not require
Congressional approval.
The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee makes crucial
decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics,
gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy, contraception,
treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for
sterilization and pregnancy termination.
Dr. Hager's views of reproductive health care are far outside the
mainstream for reproductive technology. Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who
describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe
contraceptives to unmarried women.
Hager is the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring
Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing
women with case studies from Hager's practice.
In the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress
and the Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual
syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and
contributing author of "The Reproduction,"
Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality Reproductive
Technologies and the Family," Dr. Hager appears to have endorsed the
medically inaccurate assertion that the common Birth Control pill is an
abortifacient.
Hager's mission is religiously motivated. He has an ardent
interest in revoking approval for mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) as a
safe and early form of medical abortion. Hagar recently assisted the Christian
Medical Association in a "citizen's petition" which calls upon the
FDA to revoke its approval of mifepristone in the name of women's health.
Hager's desire to overturn mifepristone's approval on
religious grounds rather than scientific merit would halt the development of
mifepristone as a treatment for numerous medical conditions disproportionately
affecting women, including breast cancer, uterine cancer, uterine fibroid
tumors, psychotic depression, bipolar depression and Cushing's syndrome.
Women rely on the FDA to ensure their access to safe and
effective drugs for reproductive health care including products that prevent
pregnancy. For some women, such as those with certain types of diabetes and
those undergoing treatment for cancer, pregnancy can be a life-threatening
condition.
We are concerned that Dr. Hager's strong religious beliefs may
color his assessment of technologies that are necessary to protect women's
lives or to preserve and promote women's health.
Hager's track record of using religious beliefs to guide his
medical decision-making makes him a dangerous and inappropriate candidate to
serve as chair of this committee. Critical drug public policy and research must
not be held hostage by antiabortion politics. Members of this important panel
should be appointed on the basis of science and medicine, rather than politics
and religion. American women deserve no less.