The Washington Monthly

August 31, 2005

PLAN B PROMPTS RESIGNATION....Susan Wood, the assistant FDA commissioner for women's health, has resigned in protest over the transparent politicization of the scientific review process for Plan B, the "morning after" pill:

"I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overuled," she wrote in an e-mail to her staff and FDA colleagues.

....When the FDA rejected the first application last year to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B available without a prescription, officials acknowledged that the science staff had overwhelmingly favored the application.

....[But] opponents...believe that it will encourage teenage promiscuity and that in some cases its mode of action constitutes abortion. Social and religious conservatives flooded the White House with phone calls in the days before [the FDA's] decision.

Wood made the right decision. If the White House or Congress wants to make decisions on moral grounds, that's fine. The FDA, however, should make them solely on scientific grounds. George Bush's FDA is no longer doing that.

—Kevin Drum 1:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks

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