The debate continues in earnest at the FDA:
Federal drug regulators on Friday once again delayed making a decision on allowing over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill, saying they needed more time to gather public reaction to the plan and to figure out how they could enforce it.
Plan B DeniedThe announcement infuriated Democrats and abortion rights advocates, who said the Food and Drug Administration allowed politics to trump science. Abortion opponents, however, said the application should be rejected.
Lester M. Crawford, the commissioner of food and drugs, said in a news conference that his agency had decided that the science supported giving over-the-counter access of the drug to women 17 and older, but that the agency could not figure out how to do that from regulatory and practical standpoints without younger teenagers’ obtaining the pills, too.
The application “presented us with many difficult and novel policy and regulatory issues,” Dr. Crawford said.
Is there really any legitimate reason for delay of this product, or is this just politics? Why does the FDA need more ‘public reaction’ before determining whether a drug is safe?
A cynical person, like me, might think this decision has been delayed because the administration does now want a defeat for the religious right to come before their support will be needed for the Roberts nomination. Of course, I could just be wrong (and we’ll just add that to the long list of things I am wrong about on a daily basis).
srv
Could we just get it all over with and establish a religious council to oversee these kinds of decisions? It would take too long to convert the courts to Ayatollahs.
TallDave
There are a lot of similarities here to the debate over the birth control pill in Japan, which iirc is either still illegal there or was only recently legalized.
There probanly is no real (i.e., non-political) reason for delay, though patients should be warned that like all precription drugs RU-486 does have some dangers.
ppGaz
Luckily, we have a government that is guided by lofty principles:
“A leader is somebody who is willing to take positions based on principle, not polls or focus groups.”
—George W. Bush, as quoted by Bob Kemper in the Chicago Tribune, Oct. 29, 2000.
Excuse me, I have to run to the medical supply and get another oxygen bottle, I am laughing so hard I almost passed out. I’m turning blue, I tell ya.
Another Jeff
I consider myself pro-choice and agree that a lot of it probably comes down to politics.
That being said, I do find it a tad bit strange that, based on what i’ve read, this pill would be available over the counter but “the pill” would still require a prescription.
Is this the case or am i missing something? I understand that there’s an immediacy that might be involved when it comes to getting RE-486, but it still seems a bit strange.
KC
Srv is right. And it’d be easy to do too. Just let Robertson and Dobson issue recommendations on appointments to the Supreme Court. Then we’ll have a religious council to approve all decisions, scientific, political, or otherwise. Think how easy that would make things.
Mike S
That’s just lame. Unless we go back to outlawing alchohal, cigs and spray paint it’s just a sorry excuse.
DougJ
Why SHOULDN’T religious leaders have some say in these things? Other groups do. Scientists do, legal experts do, economists do. Why not religious experts? The bias here is stunning. In literally every other arena, those with expertise in a subject have input into the goverment’s decision-making process. Yet we cut religious scholars and leaders out of the decisions that have to with morality and spirituality. Explain to me how this is fair.
Davebo
DougJ
What exactly does morality or spirtuality have to do with the issue of whether or not RU-486 is a safe drug?
Or with the FDA in general?
DougJ
Life begins at conception. The morning after pill thus ends life. Ending innocent life is murder.
ppGaz
For the same reason that we don’t get together on Sunday mornings to hear the pharmacist’s sermon?
Actually, DougJIncorporated, it’s because we don’t live in a frigging theocracy. Yet.
When we do, and all are kneeling to the First ppGaz Church of the Devinely Ironic, we will have you deported to Iran where you belong.
Adios.
Davebo
Gee DougJ, you seem to have run off the original track.
But I want to you to know that should you decide against terminating a pregnancy we are all behind you with support.
hadenoughofthisyet
Just a FYI. Plan B (the “morning after pill”) described in the article is not the same thing as RU-486. RU-486 is a drug that will induce abortion while Plan B prevents pregnancy.
Joel
This story doesn’t concern RU-486, it’s about Plan B birth control. The two are frequently mixed up but they are not the same thing. Plan B must be used almost immmediately to be effective as it prevents implantation of a feritilized egg in the uterus. RU-486 induces an abortion and can be used (I believe) for several weeks after fertilization. It is unlikely to be approved for OTC sales any time soon (likely never).
DougJ
Oh, so any system where people of faith have input is a theocracy. How open-minded of you.
ppGaz
No, a system where religious imperatives drive government decisions and actions …. that’s a theocracy. Where officials have to check with religious leaders first to find out what’s okay, that’s a theocracy. Where government is based on the “divine.”
If you really want a country like that, why don’t you leave? There are several of them out there for you to choose from.
Goodbye, we’ll miss (all of) you.
DougJ
Democracy itself is based on the divine: “that they were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”
srv
Life begins at conception
DougJ, that’s your scientific or religious opinion? Or are you joining the modern pop-evangelical interpretation that an unfertilized (unconceived) egg is ensouled?
I for one welcome all the religious zealots, as long as they let “religious scholars and leaders” from Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan and Scientology into their schools and churches. Explain to me how that would be unfair.
Mike S
Wasn’t it agreed long long ago that nothing DougJ writes is worthy of a response?
Jim Jones
I don’t think we should be too quick to discount the near miraculousness of what’s going on here:
In his sermon at Asbury College last fall, Hager proudly recounted his role in the Plan B decision. “After two days of hearings,” he said, “the committees voted to approve this over-the-counter sale by 23 to 4. I was asked to write a minority opinion that was sent to the commissioner of the FDA…. Now the opinion I wrote was not from an evangelical Christian perspective…. But I argued it from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and He used it through this minority report to influence the decision.”
ppGaz
You need to take that up with your creator, which I assume is Hannah and Barbera.
Mike S
Family blog, no porn refrences please.
Dave Ruddell
I’m curious, in which legal document (and by that I mean a document that has binding legal authority in the USA) does that phrase appear in?
Also, I’m pretty sure democracy predates 1776.
Andrew J. Lazarus
It will be a great day when DougJ needs a prescription to buy bacon.
Otto Man
Heh. Nice.
Boronx
Life begins at conception.
What makes you say that? As far as I can tell, life began 4 billion years ago and hasn’t let up since.
baronelmo
Life begins at conception. Jerking off thus ends life. Ending innocent life is murder.
EL
From a medical perspective, there is no reason not to put Plan B over the counter, and I believe there has been a lot of medical opinion supporting this for at least a few years. If the same medical information supported an indgestion drug, it would long since have gone OTC.
Another Jeff Says:
That being said, I do find it a tad bit strange that, based on what i’ve read, this pill would be available over the counter but “the pill” would still require a prescription.
It probably sounds strange, but it isn’t so strange from a medical perspective. The dangers of birth control pills (blood clots, for instance) would be extremely low based on a brief use. It’s long periods that you would worry. The analogy isn’t great, but it’s the difference between smoking two cigarettes on a single day once, or even once a year, vs. a pack a day over years.
And DougJ, do you want Jehovah’s Witnesses deciding our blood transfusion policy? They oppose blood transfusions, if you aren’t aware of that. Religious people are free to have a say over what their religion advises or even compels members of their faith to do. I want blood transfusions, and other treatments, available for those who don’t have those religious strictures.
goonie bird
OH CANT YOU SEE THE MORING AFTER ITS WAITING RIGHT OUTSIDE THE STORM excuse me but that was the oscar nominated song from THE POSIDON ADVENTURE