Who, Exactly, Thought Things Would Magically Get Better?

Anyone who thought things would magically get better during a second term should probably check out this article.

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.

Prayer and scripture for my PMS?

But wait. It gets better.

Hager was chosen for the post by FDA senior associate commissioner Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with longstanding ties to the Bush family…. FDA spokesman Bill Pierce called Hager “well qualified.”

Well qualified? Perhaps we should just make band-aids out of pages of the Bible and apply those to gaping wounds. I’m sure that would help.

[Found via Pharyngula]