YOU DID IT........KEROACK IS GONE

Posted 3/30/07
Thanks to everyone's diligent activism Dr. Keroack is out the door. Thanks to all of you who kept the pressure on him.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A controversial U.S. health official, Dr. Eric Keroack, has stepped down from his position overseeing programs that include birth control for poor women, the Health and Human Services Department said.

Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. John Agwunobi released a brief statement on Thursday saying that Keroack, who was appointed last November to oversee a $280 million program that provides birth control to poor women, had resigned.

``Yesterday, Dr. Eric Keroack alerted us to an action taken against him by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Office of Medicaid,'' Agwunobi said in a statement released late on Thursday. ``As a result of this action, I accepted his resignation as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Population Affairs.''

Keroack had been criticized by Democrats in Congress because he had worked for clinics in Massachusetts that opposed the use of birth control. HHS has said that Keroack has in fact prescribed birth control to women as part of his practice.

Keroack never responded to requests for interviews to clarify his stance on prescribing birth control to women.

HHS did not give any details about what action Massachusetts took against Keroack.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America welcomed the news.

``It's a good day for women's health. Keroack was unqualified to run the nation's family planning program,'' PPFA president Cecile Richards said in a statement.

``The Bush administration must replace Keroack with a legitimate, mainstream public health expert who supports family planning and access to birth control. More than 17 million women in our country need access to affordable birth control. The nation's family planning program should be run by a champion for women's health and safety,'' Richards said.

As head of the Office of Population Affairs at HHS, Keroack oversaw a program that funds birth control, pregnancy tests, breast-cancer screening and other health services for 5 million poor women annually.

Keroack previously served as medical director for A Woman's Concern, a chain of Boston-area pregnancy clinics that discourage the use of birth control and advocate abstinence as a way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.