Legislating Plan B

Drugs and treatments should be available based on medical merit, not legislation. Nice gesture, but still the wrong way to go about it:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers frustrated with U.S. regulators' slow pace introduced a bill Thursday to force the
Food and Drug Administration to decide whether the "morning-after pill" can be sold without a prescription.

The measure says the Plan B pill, made by Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., would be automatically be approved for over-the-counter sale 30 days after the bill's passage, until the agency makes a decision.

The bill's sponsors said the FDA had repeatedly refused to grant over-the-counter status for Plan B despite overwhelming scientific recommendations that it do so.

"Some of the FDA's own scientists have charged that politics, not science, is behind the FDA's actions," Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Joseph Crowley of New York, Jay Inslee of Washington, and Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record) of Connecticut said in a statement.

And, once again, Plan B is not a "morning-after pill". It is postcoital birth control. You can take it up to 120 hrs after unprotected intercourse. Also, mifepristone (RU-486) is not an "abortion pill". It is an antiprogestine. Depending on dosage/regimen, it acts to prevent a pregnancy, or to terminate it.


Technorati tags: Plan B, emergency contraception, birth control, RU-486, mifepristone, health and wellness