(conservative) Groups sue FDA over "morning-after" pill ruling

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Groups sue FDA over "morning-after" pill ruling

Fri Apr 13, 3:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two conservative organizations and other
groups have asked a court to overturn U.S. regulators' decision to
allow nonprescription sales of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s "morning-
after" contraceptive.

The Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America
said they filed suit on Thursday against the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration over its August 2006 ruling on Barr's Plan B drug.

The lawsuit says the FDA violated laws and regulations when it
allowed Plan B to be sold to adults without a prescription. The FDA
ordered that the pills be kept behind pharmacy counters and only
given to girls younger than 18 with a doctor's order.

The groups said the FDA lacked the authority to approve such a
plan, and to set different rules based on age.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070413/us_nm/contraceptive_lawsuit_dc

[depakid]

1. If EVER there was a Rule 11 situation, this is it.

These groups AND their attorneys need to be sanctioned, because any reading of the circumstances of this case shows that the exact opposite of what they assert are true.

Not only did the FDA have the authority to make the decision- it had the duty to, given the evidence, the record, the reports of its staff scientists and the statues and legal precedents.

I hate to be trite, but considering the history here- the interference in the science and the proper procedure by these very groups- this really is Orwellian.

btw: Rule 11 http://www.aepronet.org/pn/vol6-no2.html

(Not that sanctions will happen, but they should).

[Ilsa]

2. Sounds good to me. Anything to make the FRC and its supporters

pay out of pocket or waste their time to keep them off other projects.

[truth2power]

4. Heh heh...I was thinking about Rule 11 as I was reading that...

For people who yap about frivolous lawsuits all the time, they sure don't mind taking up the Court's time with this crap! :eyes:

[BadgerKid]

3. Probably is just another attempt

for attention-starving conservatives to rally for the cause.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. In the best of all possible worlds

the judge would strike the age limit but leave the rule intact. I'd love to see that jackass Dobson's face if that happened. Actually his face makes me throwup, so nevermind.

[depakid]

7. Ironically, the age distinction

May be their best foot into the door....

Even though these very groups are the ones who pressured the political appointees at the agency to act arbitrarily and capriciously in denying Emergency Contraception to women over the counter. So they managed a "compromise" to satisfy the fundies. Ignore the science- and demand that teens (or even college kids at the state level) who'd benefit the most, are denied access.

A poison pill, so to speak.

Outsiders like us can't really know unless we understand the judge (and the clerks) who will review the case- and what the pleadings say.

A second irony- one that might be lost on some is that Supreme Court opinions over the past 20 years, they've run silently- affording administrative agencies a great deal of deference- latitude- in formulating their decisions.

Bottom line is that these kinds of folks are duplicitous and will say anything.... they don't care about laws, however venerable- they don't care about science or rational economics. Curious. What do they care about? Anything? I don't know. What do you all think?

One thing I have learned- over a couple of years, is that when we pander to them, when we enable them, they just get bolder. And want more and more. Compromise- reasonableness- that's just not thier nature.

You may agree or not agree, yet it seems to me that this is a case in point.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Well yes indeed I agree completely.

I was making a joke, but what you just wrote is the serious point behind the joke - it was this same bunch of misogynist fundamentalist theocrats who demanded restrictions, fought plan b availability tooth and nail, and who pushed this compromise forward. It is a lesson in the methodology of how our opposition party gets screwed on a regular basis.

I think it is rather obvious that their half of the authoritarian branch of the party of the right wants a theocracy, demands a theocracy, and is moving forward in many directions to build that theocracy within the shell of the current republic.

[theothersnippywshrub]

6. Dr. David Hager, well known anal rapist and Bush appointee to FDA

Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs probably is involved in this case.