Posted on 10/15/2002 10:24:13 AM PDT by xsysmgr
Can a doctor have religious convictions? Does having religious convictions disqualify him for public service?
These are not theoretical questions from a college ethics class. They are questions some doctors are asking themselves after reading the press attacks on a potential candidate for an FDA advisory committee last week.
Dr. W. David Hager, a doctor and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kentucky, was the subject of a piece in Time magazine by Karen Tumulty titled "Jesus and the FDA." Dr. Hager, it would seem, is a "Jesus freak" (my words, not Tumulty's) who wants to reverse Roe v. Wade by questioning a drug treatment that appears to be dangerous, refuses to prescribe birth control to unmarried women, and, actually, would rather have his patients pray and wait for Divine intervention than medically act to treat disease.
Sounds kinda silly, doesn't it? Well, it is.
The Time piece mentions in its lead that Hager is the author of a book called As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now. It also mentions that he wrote a book with his wife called Stress and the Woman's Body, "which puts 'an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life.'" True. True. Of course, they don't mention any of his non-religion-focused books or his peer-reviewed articles. No mention, for instance, of the two textbooks he's edited, both published by well-regarded medical publishers (Infection Protocols for Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical Economics, 1992, and Protocols for Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Blackwell Science, 1999), or other mainstream, standard medical textbooks he's written for. No consideration of his work that has been published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, or the Journal of the American Medical Association.
And, as sober colleagues explain Hager's now-controversial birth-control position, many doctors discuss the danger of having more than one sex partner with unmarried patients before prescribing birth control-but in the end many, if not most, prescribe it. As for Divine intervention, a recent poll found that most patients would actually like their doctors to have a belief system. Other studies show that people who have religious faith are generally healthier than those who do not. That Hager believes that, however, does not mean that he does not act as a medical doctor. When he sees patients, that is, obviously, his primary responsibility.
But here's the kicker about all the uproar surrounding Dr. Hager: He has not yet been nominated to anything. And if the abortion advocates have anything to do with it (and they've already made their voice well heard), they are going to make sure that he never is.
Time evidently got the story from an FDA leak. Wrote Tumulty: "A quiet battle is raging over the Bush Administration's plan to appoint a scantily credentialed doctor" to the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee.
But his credentials as a doctor and policy adviser are not the real issue: It's abortion.
Hager, you see, made the fatal mistake of helping to write — and publicly explain — a petition filed by the Christian Medical Association questioning the abortion cocktail RU-486. The FDA is currently reviewing the petition and is required by law to respond to it.
And although pro-lifers — including Dr. David Stevens, president of the Christian Medical Association — readily admit that they would applaud if Roe v. Wade were overturned or RU-486 were forever banned, few consider either a realistic policy goal.
The RU-486 petition is actually a compelling, substantive report. It's not a pro-life screed focusing on the evils of abortion. Instead, if focuses on the dangers of this particular drug regimen, which the petition demonstrates to be greater than those of the average drug. And — more importantly in the context of the Hager issue — it exposes the FDA's laxity in approving the drug.
RU-486 is a heated issue; even more heated than abortion in general, because women are not asking for it in the numbers abortion advocates had hoped. The drug cocktail was supposed to have made abortion easy and private. A woman goes home and has an abortion in the privacy of her own home. Of course, it's not that easy, speaking strictly in medical terms.
Hager's position on it is certainly not out of the mainstream. But judging from the reaction to the Hager leak in Time, the future does not look bright for a Hager appointment.
After the Time piece appeared, Maureen Dowd jumped on the bandwagon, asking "W.W.J.D at the F.D.A?" In a letter the Times posted in response to the Dowd column, a reader opined: "In the midst of a feeding frenzy about war with Iraq, Maureen Dowd reminds us that there are domestic issues that deserve our attention. Dr. W. David Hager is the last person women should want representing their health issues within the Food and Drug Administration." Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ted Kennedy spoke out against Hager last week. Kennedy accused the White House of "stacking these committees with right-wing ideologues instead of respected scientists."
While Hager is probably not on the radar screens of most Americans, enough damage may have already been done to kill any possibility of a Hager nomination. This, despite the fact that this accomplished doctor was, among other things, given the "Outstanding Physician in America Award" by Modern Healthcare in 1994 and has previously served in government positions-including as a clinical research investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and as an assistant surgeon general.
This has happened before. There are, of course, the judges who are not allowed to be pro-life, have pro-life convictions, or even rule in favor of parental notification (a law that simply protects minors from handling abortion on their own). And there was John Klink, whose story is hauntingly similar to Hager's. Rumor got out that he was going to be the White House choice to head the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, through a short item in U.S. News and World Report in spring 2001. Needless to say, he never made it to Foggy Bottom. Again, he failed the abortion litmus test, big-time, and was dropped after only a few press reports and many rabid press releases.
In recent years, the FDA has been criticized on a host of issues outside of abortion, and not just by pro-lifers. Dr. Stevens warns that this leak is "about an FDA that does not want to be scrutinized." The committee, for instance, that Hager's name has been floated for has not met in two years and currently has no members. That's no way for a government agency to operate, most especially one whose decisions so directly affect issues of life and death.
If Hager never makes it to Washington, it will be more than just another unfair loss to the Left in the name of hysterical abortion politics: a qualified doctor willing to question the FDA when necessary. But, worse still, if secular media and Left folk manage to create what Dr. Stevens calls a "false dichotomy" between medicine and values, or values and policymaking, scuttled potential nominations will not be the worst result.
Robert M. Goldberg, a science scholar at the Manhattan Institute, says of the anti-Hager pile-on: "The Left wants to paint Hager as some sort of anti-science faith healer. In fact he is a respected researcher and — unlike a lot of people who sit on FDA advisory panels — a practicing doctor who see the promise and pain of medicine up close." Goldberg adds, "It is unprecedented to have members of Congress get involved in the appointment of what are voluntary and advisory FDA committee positions. It politicizes medical progress in the worst way."
The FDA claims there will be a meeting of the advisory panel on November 12 and 13. The committee has important issues to discuss, including hormone-replacement drugs and, yes, RU-486 — and it will also scrutinize the FDA's handling of warning labels and approval processing. At this point, the meeting looks like it will be held in an empty conference room.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is the Executive Editor of National Review Online.
As a proud member of the vast right wing conspiracy (beleive in God, want taxes cut) it always amuses me when the Leftists beleive that we all agree on what Jesus would do in any given situation. Knock over some tables? provide some actual healing? Render unto Caesar? Is it this kind of contempt for our values that will finally unite us so that His prayer in John 17;11 is answered?
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