The President and Plan B
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
President Bush's sentiments about birth control are "directly at odds with FDA's extraordinary refusal to approve OTC sale of emergency contraception products," according to letter to the President sent by the Center for Reproductive Rights July 6. The letter refers to a recent statement by the Bush administration that the President supports the "availability of safe and effective products and services to assist responsible adults in making decisions about preventing or delaying conception." The administration's position on birth control was requested by Members of Congress in July 2005. The reasons for delaying an answer to Barr Labs' Plan B switch application "appear to have nothing to do with the safety or effectiveness of Plan B - the only considerations that are the proper purview of the FDA," CRR maintains. "If the administration indeed supports safe and effective products and services to assist responsible adults...then there is no reason for its failure to support the availability of EC"...