Tony Abbot - RU Serious?

Yesterday saw the conscious vote in the Federal Senate over the body responsible for determining the future usage of the drug RU486.  For those who do not know, this drug is an “anti hormone” that when taken by a pregnant woman, will lead to the body rejecting the foetus and hence inducing a miscarriage.  The drug has other uses including certain types of cancers mainly in women (read breast cancer) and can be used for a variety of other medical reasons.

In Australia, we have a medical board (the TGA) that determines the use and availability of all medicines in this country.  They regulate the supply, import and production of all medicines from paracetamol through to high risk neurosurgical drugs.  All of them.  Except one.

RU486 was removed from the review of the TGA by one man; the Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott.  Tony Abbott is a man who went to Sydney University and did something like Law or Accounting and was an active member of the Sydney Uni student political scene.  He worked his way up through the political system and has been entrenched in the Federal Liberal Party for many years.  He has done so quite openly on a religious platform and has never shirked from his views as a religious crusader.  As a man who is what I would call “hard core” religious, you could guess his views on abortion and contraception.

So our Tony, decided to take RU486 out of the system so to speak and banned it.  He, as Federal Health Minister, can do that I presume, but the fundamental issue here is not that the drug is good or not, but rather that Tony Abbott did this with NO medical knowledge.  He has as much experience with medicine as I do, which is essentially what I know by reading the newspaper and seeing my GP every once in a while.

So with no real medical training and knowledge, Tony took the drug off the review board and closed the file.

Well a strong protest was lodged by all manner of lobby groups and the end result was that the decision that Tony Abbott made was reviewed by the Senate.  The Senate had to vote whether Tony Abbott was correct and sustain his one man banning of RU486 or overturn his decision and return the drug for review by the TGA.  Now with the Liberal Party holding a massive upperhand in the Senate, the concern was that if the vote went down Party Lines, the drug would be kept off our shelves for ever.  Fortunately the vote was deemed a “conscience vote” and all Senators could vote as they saw the issue independently.

Not surprising Tony Abbott was overwhelmingly voted down including 27 out of 30 women senators voting to have the drug returned to the TGA.  I am surprised myself that 3 went the other way!

Tony Abbott’s view on this decision?  Well he is “seething” according to my radio news this morning and that he feels that “backyard abortions will be the end result”.  WTF?  I cant see how that can transpire as a result of having a medicine reviewed by medical experts?

Tony Abbott, U R A TOOL.