[csaa-forum] bolt is a powerful nut

[Sue Lovell]

Hi People

I've never contributed to the list befoer, being an enlightened lurker, but 
I can't resist saying that I think 'glib' is a natural defence mechanism - 
the question is how do we move past it into significant opposition?  This 
email came to me from another list and  indicates quite clearly, I 
think,  the dangers of a right that goes un-opposed!

Sue

from another list:
 > <<New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Lion Calandra Women's health
 > deserves more than prayers.url>> Scary Stuff
 >
 >
 > Women's health deserves more than prayers
 >
 > FDA needs to lose doc who wrote the book on Bible therapies
 > By LION CALANDRA
 >
 > Imagine this: Cindy and her charming prince ride off into the sunset. They
 > marry. They have a baby. Cindy gets depressed. At the advice of her
 > godmother, she goes to a doctor, who prescribes a healthy dose of ...
 > Scripture.
 > A fractured fairy tale? In "Stress and the Woman's Body," a book written
by
 > Dr. W. David Hager with his wife, Linda, women are advised to read
specific
 > Scriptures to treat such ailments as headaches and PMS. For headaches,
it's
 > Matthew 13:44-46. For PMS, Romans 5:1-11. Such suggestions would normally
be
 > enough to have someone branded a quack. But when the Food and Drug
 > Administration's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee meets next
 > week, Hager will be one of its members. He was appointed by the Bush
 > administration in 2001 and will have the gig until June. That is, of
course,
 > unless Bush taps him to run the FDA, an appointment that would not require
 > congressional approval.
 > The committee, meeting for the first time since 2001, is expected to
review
 > a new Procter & Gamble drug for the treatment of low sexual desire in
 > menopausal women. And how will Hager view it? A doctor who believes in God
 > as the last word in healing is sure to put medical breakthroughs on the
back
 > burner. Time magazine reported that two sources familiar with his practice
 > say Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women.
 > This doctor has checked the Hippocratic Oath at the church steps, choosing
 > to ignore hard-won scientific gains and opting for a sort of therapeutic
 > nihilism.
 > The advisory panels of the FDA often have near-final say. So, if Hager
makes
 > policy decisions based on the Bible, what does that mean for women's
 > medicine? That only Christian women can be cured? What about Jewish and
 > Muslim women - or agnostics?
 > He's the last person who should be making recommendations on women's
health
 > to a governmental agency. A woman's body should not become the battlefield
 > for an ethical war of religion vs. science.
 > Prayer is not a cure for postpartum depression. Beatitudes cannot treat
 > bulimia (Corinthians 2 10:2-5). If Hager follows his own pattern and bucks
 > standard medical practice, women affected by his recommendations can no
 > longer expect to live happily ever after.
 > Calandra is a News copy editor
 >
 >
 > 
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/255329p-218646c.html>http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/255329p-218646c.html



At 09:18 PM 2/12/2004 +1000, you wrote:
>My glib reply was a weak attempt to console myself that the state of this 
>country is indeed a joke. Thinking about the reality of Australia's 
>growing right is absolutely depressing. Too depressing in fact. If only 
>academics, with all their decreasing might and dwindling fiscal 
>reservoirs, could change the status quo. Soon we will be as obsolete as logic.
>
>kiley
>
>_______________________________________
>
>csaa-forum
>discussion list of the cultural studies association of australasia
>
>www.csaa.asn.au



Dr Sue 
Lovell 

School of Arts, Media and 
Culture
Griffith 
University
Nathan 

Qld 
4111

S.Lovell at griffith.edu.au
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