Dr. Hager is a prominent, socially conservative Ob-Gyn and a Bush Administration appointee to the FDA's Advisory Committee on Reproductive Health Drugs. He wielded crucial influence behind the scenes of the FDA's highly controversial 2004 decision to prohibit the sale of Plan B over the counter, the article states.

Plan B is a combination of pills that can prevent conception if taken within 72 hours after sexual intercourse.

God Moves in Mysterious Ways?

Dr. Hager sent a letter that he calls a "minority opinion" regarding Barr Laboratories' application for nonprescription sales of the emergency contraceptive after two agency advisory panels had recommended its approval. The FDA subsequently rejected Barr's application, and Dr. Hager has publicly taken credit for that outcome.

"I argued it from a scientific perspective, and God took that information and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision," he said in a sermon at Asbury College in Kentucky in October. "Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good."

Dr. Hager's letter reportedly was read by the FDA commissioner and used in the ruling against Plan B. The Washington Post published two articles about this previously undisclosed maneuver by Dr. Hager that first was reported in The Nation.

Accusation of Sexual Abuse

US Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray have called on Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to investigate Dr. Hager's actions. Along with other members of the U.S. Senate, they have held up Lester M. Crawford's nomination as FDA director over the agency's handling of the Plan B decision.

Despite his public moralizing on sexual matters, Dr. Hager, according to his former wife, Linda Carruth Davis, repeatedly sodomized her without her consent throughout the last seven years of their 32-year marriage, according to the special report published in The Nation on Friday.

"These serious allegations are relevant to the public role of the subject of the profile, who was appointed by President Bush to be a custodian of women's health," The Nation editors note.

Dr. Hager is up for reappointment to the FDA committee on June 30. He has said that he does not expect to serve a third term, however, and has denied his former wife's allegations.