Clinton Pushed RU-486 in First Official Act, Report Shows

Two things surprised me about this article:
1) Bill Clinton was stupid enough to leave documents like this in his library.
2) Y'all were so enthralled with this man that you re-elected him for a second term.
What is kind of funny is that you can't find anyone, these days, who will admit to voting for Bill Clinton.

(CNSNews.com) - Before being sworn in as president, Democrat Bill Clinton was told that he should "start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of the country." Clinton received the advice in a letter from an advocate for the abortion drug regimen RU-486, which the president promoted during his first official act in the White House, according to a new report.
New attention is being paid to RU-486 as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) debates whether to ban the drug combination because of a spate of incidents in which women allegedly died or were injured from its effects.
"The Clinton RU-486 Files", released by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, contains recently uncovered documents that shed new light on the Clinton administration's legal, political and press strategy for bringing RU-486 into the American marketplace -- despite the manufacturer's earlier decision not to market the drug in the United States.
According to the documents obtained last February from the National Archives at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., Clinton ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the FDA to coordinate the marketing of RU-486. He did so in his first official act three days after moving into the White House in January 1993.
Clinton had received advice concerning the abortion regimen in a letter from Ron Weddington, whose wife, Sarah, had advocated for the legal right to abortion as an attorney in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.
In urging the legalization of RU-486, Ron Weddington wrote in a Jan. 6, 1992, letter to Clinton. "Something's got to be done very quickly. Twenty-six million food stamp recipients is (sic) more than the economy can stand."
The "president-to-be" should "start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of the country," Weddington added.
"Our survival depends upon our developing a population where everyone contributes," he wrote. "We don't need more cannon fodder. We don't need more parishioners. We don't need more cheap labor. We don't need more babies."
"Weddington's ravings were not relegated to a file for unsolicited constituent correspondence," the Judicial Watch report notes. "On the contrary, the Weddington letter is, chronologically and philosophically, the foundation document for the Clinton RU-486 files."
Within a month of Clinton's first directive, FDA Commissioner David Kessler met with the RU-486 manufacturer, the French pharmaceutical company Roussel Uclaf. After that, official political, economic and diplomatic pressure from the U.S. government was exercised to make the drug available in the United States, the Judicial Watch report states.
In one confidential memo, former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala claimed that she and Kessler had personally changed the positions of the makers of RU-486 to market the pill in the U.S.
The documents also indicate that Roussel Uclaf offered to give the patent for the abortion drug regimen to the U.S. government for free so the French company would not be liable for damages if anything went wrong.
"Accepting the patent gift should be touted as a reproductive rights victory for American women and another example of the Clinton administration's commitment to deliver on its promises," Kevin Thurm, a deputy secretary with HHS, wrote in 1994.
Still, Thurm noted that Shalala should accept the patent on behalf of the government rather than Clinton "for purposes of insulating the White House" from any political consequences.
The documents also show that while Clinton administration officials were concerned rejecting the patent would alienate abortion "rights" groups, the White House turned down the offer anyway, and the company gave the rights to the non-profit Population Council.
However, the drugmaker's board would only agree to the arrangement if it received an official letter from the president of the United States requesting RU-486 on behalf of the women of the country.
Clinton's letter was dated May 16, 1994, and it stated that women of the United States needed "safe and effective medical treatment." The president concluded his missive by writing: "On behalf of the government of the United States and for the women of America, I thank you for your work."

'Culture of corruption'
The Judicial Watch report also claims that pressure from the Clinton administration led the FDA to circumvent the standard requirements for certifying a drug as "safe and effective" in order to rush the abortion regimen to market.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who is mentioned in a May 11, 1994, status memo by Thurm "as one of six Republicans who cosponsored a bill 'to prohibit federal funds from being used for clinical studies of RU-486 as an abortifacient,'" said that the expedited procedure used to approve RU-486 was "totally inappropriate."
That process is "used for drugs that treat disease by providing some hope for life where there isn't any," Bartlett told Cybercast News Service. "Clearly, RU-486 is not that kind of drug."
"These new documents prove the RU-486 approval process was infected by raw politics," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Accordingly, Congress and other authorities should launch appropriate investigations.
"At least six women and 560,000 unborn children have lost their lives due to the Clinton administration's reckless drive to bring RU-486 to America," Fitton added. "This dangerous abortion pill needs to be pulled off the market immediately."
"All of the Clinton administration's actions on this issue were based on the science and what was best for American women," Jay Carson, a current spokesman for the former president, said in a statement to the Associated Press on May 9.
But, Joe Giganti, spokesman for the National Pro-Life Action Center (NPLAC), told Cybercast News Service that the report exposes a "culture of corruption" at the FDA.
The problem is so severe that the agency is "no longer acting in the best interests of their own mandate, which is to look out for the public health and safety," he added. "They approved a drug that is dangerous to every baby and has been proven dangerous to most of the women who are taking it," Giganti said.
Lannier Swann, director of government relations for the conservative organization Concerned Women for America (CWA), added that "it is now the duty of Congress to conduct a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of the unethical actions performed under Clinton's watch," she stated.
"Both Clinton and the FDA should be held accountable for their careless disregard for women and failure to put the American people's interests above their own," Swann added.
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, the FDA issued a health warning in July 2005 because five American women died after using RU-486.
Several months later, Republican lawmakers urged Congress to suspend the availability of the abortion drug, calling it a "baby pesticide" that is also harmful to women.
This past March, more deaths were linked to RU-486, and CWA called on the FDA to pull the drug.
House Republicans demanded quick action on proposed legislation to force the FDA to withdraw approval of the abortion drug combination. The bill is called Holly's Law and is named after 18-year-old Holly Patterson of California, who died of an infection in 2003 after taking RU-486.