"Oooo, scary, scary! Run for your lives!"
Posted on 11/09/2004 2:01:23 PM PST by crushelits
A quiet battle is raging over the Bush Administration's plan to appoint a scantily credentialed doctor, whose writings include a book titled As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, to head an influential Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on women's health policy. Sources tell Time that the agency's choice for the advisory panel is Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist who also wrote, with his wife Linda, Stress and the Woman's Body, which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome. Though his resume describes Hager as a University of Kentucky professor, a university official says Hager's appointment is part time and voluntary and involves working with interns at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital, not the university itself. In his private practice, two sources familiar with it say, Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. Hager did not return several calls for comment.
FDA advisory panels often have near-final say over crucial health questions. If Hager becomes chairman of the 11-member Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, he will lead its study of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women, one of the biggest controversies in health care. Some conservatives are trying to use doubts about such therapy to discredit the use of birth-control pills, which contain similar compounds. The panel also made the key recommendation in 1996 that led to approval of the "abortion pill," RU-486—a decision that abortion foes are still fighting. Hager assisted the Christian Medical Association last August in a "citizens' petition" calling upon the FDA to reverse itself on RU-486, saying it has endangered the lives and health of women.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Since I highly doubt he recommends those things TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER treatments, what's the point--besides raising an anti-Christian boogieman?
I just went to Amazon.com to look at the book As Jesus Cared for Women
Seems everyone hates it.
not that it means anything, of course, but usually you'll find at least one 5 star review.
If this guy is the head of this panel, it won't be "influential". If he even gets the job, it'll be a political pay-off appointment, with no real power or responsibilities.
The Christians are coming! The Christians are coming! Run for your lives!!!
The TIME article is a load of crap.
Here is his BIO. Time calls him unqualified....
http://www2.mc.uky.edu/OBG/People/faculty/Genl/Hager%20WD%20.htm
Dr. Hager has a special interest and expertise in Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics & Gynecology, and has gained national and international recognition for his work in this area. He was President of Infectious Diseases Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology from 1996-1998. He was also named as one of the "Best Doctors in America" in both 1994 and 1996.
Faculty Positions:
Centers for Disease Control, 1976-1978
Emory University, 1976-1978
University of Kentucky, 1978-
Here is a letter he wrote
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:zF4yxgJM_j0J:www-scf.usc.edu/~karamani/+%22David+Hager%22&hl=en
reproduced below:
These comments are a response from Dr. W. David Hager to various comments made about him:
May I begin by telling you that no one who has written about me or broadcast information about me has ever interviewed me. The information being disseminated is rumor and innuendo. I am pro-life and believe in the sanctity of human life.
I participated in the Citizens Petition to the FDA asking that RU-486 be withdrawn temporarily from the market until further investigation could be done out of my concern for the health and well-being of women and their unborn children. Mifeprex was approved under an Accelerated Approval Process, Subpart H, that has been reserved exclusively for anti-AIDS and anti-cancer drugs and an antihypertensive agent. All medications that are life saving, which mifeprex is not. The FDA always requires one or more than one randomized, controlled trials before approving a drug. There were none for mifeprex (RU-486). The nonrandomized, uncontrolled trials that were done insisted on the woman having an ultrasound scan to locate the pregnancy and insure that it was not outside the uterus (an ectopic pregnancy). The guidelines for use now do not require such a scan and we have reports already of death and morbidity from ruptured ectopic pregnancies since the symptoms of a ruptured ectopic and abortion from mifeprex are the same; abdominal pain and bleeding. The FDA requires that medications that may be used in children and adolescents be studied in those groups before approval (The Pediatric Rule) and this was not done with mifeprex. There have been two seriously infected 15 year olds. Finally, in studies reported to date, among women who fail to abort after receiving mifeprex (and this occurs 5-8% of the time when administered up to 7 weeks gestation) there have been limb deformities and absent limbs. I feel that the drug needs further study. Searle Laboratories, the manufacturer of misoprostol (the second drug taken after mifepristone) has issued a medical alert asking that the drug never be used in pregnant women due to risks of cardiovascular problems. There has been a fatal heart attack in France and a non-fatal one here in a 21 year old.
Regarding contraception, I advise all of my non-married patients that abstinence is the best way to avoid non-marital pregnancy and STDs. If she insists on being sexually active or is already active, I advise the use of birth control pills and condoms as well. I do not believe that standard dose birth control pills are abortifacient, and have never written that. There is a chapter in a book I co-edited, that purports this idea, but it was included in our book to offer an alternative opinion, not because we believed the idea. Since when is it wrong to offer alternative opinions?
Regarding my management and writing about stress-related disorders in women, I have always offered a holistic approach to therapy. I suggest diet/exercise changes, medications as needed, counseling when required, and meditation/prayer. This is very distasteful to NOW and Planned Parenthood.
I hope this helps you and enables you to see how "horrible" I am in the eyes of the organizations you mention as encouraging me not to serve this Administration.
W. David Hager, M.D.
Or the Vagina Monologues - he'd be a lead-pipe cinch...
"Oooo, scary, scary! Run for your lives!"
"recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome."
Yeah, and if that doesn't work, stick 'em outside in the red tent, like they did in the Old Testament.
I don't care if he's Crusty the Clown. I just love to hear the Socialists scream. And the ranks of Federal employees are thick and rotten with them....
Interestingly, his wife's name is listed on Amazon as "Linda Carruth" and not Linda Hager.
I guess the feminist movement is OK for his wife but not for other women? Sheesh - she should take his sir-name, like a good Christian woman should.
most professional women thse days keep their maiden name professionally. They usually also do have their husband's name and use it privately - not in the eyes of an ignorant world.
If he was Crusty the Clown, the left would welcome him. Heck they made Joslyn Elders Surgeon General.
Amazingly, Ms Tumulty is doing nothing more than recyling an internet rumor.
An easily debunked rumor.
I've been getting a spam email version of this story for weeks from the nutty mother of a life long friend.
Sometimes Dr Hager morphs into Judge Hager and he is being considered for a judicial appointment.
The rumor has also included the dire warning that " Judge " Hager speaks in Bible verses.
The gist of the E rumor is that Dr Hager is a scary Christian and must be stopped at all costs.
Apparently, liberals are more terrified of Christians than they are of terrorists.
The writer, a woman with four years of "college" under her belt and an "MBA", has the audacity to judge the qualifications of an OB-GYN?
Dr. W. David Hager attended a minimum of 8 years of college; completed a residency; and then specialized in women's reproductive health.
He's pro-life. That's enough to get him put in the stocks. *Nothing* but raging pro-aborts as appointees will satisfy the liberals.
Yes, she has probably written other works under he maiden name and wanted to keep her old customers who might now recognize her married name as the same person. Nothing wrong with that.
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