Linda Eisele - Lockett's Home Page
Email Protesting Dr. Hager's appointment

HOME

Bharathanatyam Dance Recital 2003 | Al Gore on the Environment | Stay Biologically Young | Lucille's Tear | Swiss Christmas | Rocket Launch | Christmas Letter 2003 | Yoga | Here's Looking | Heaven and Hell | Mikhail and Igor | The Pencil | Fairy in a Bottle | Poets Protest War | Gifts Online | I Am Old | Eisele's Christmas Letter 2002 | Hercules and friends | Jade | David Hager on Contraception | David Hager RU-486 Update | Barathanatyam Dance Recital | Bingo | Desire | Totality | Rachel's Dinner Party | How I look today | Do not click here | Andromache | Dorothy Lykes
Below is the full text of the email I received protesting Dr. Hager's appointment to the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. 

Subject: Dr. David Hager and the FDA
Subject: Bush appointment
Date:
Mon, 05 Jan 2004 01:42:59

 
President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David 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 omen 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.

Whichever side you are on, get out and vote in every election.  Stay informed.  If you want to change the way things are, you can as long as this country remains a democracy.
 
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE