Those Opposed to Plan B Could Restrict Access to Other Women's Health ...

[MountainLaurel]

Panelists at a forum on Monday said the same officials that directed FDA to defer a decision allowing nonprescription sales of Barr Laboratories' emergency contraceptive Plan B might lead the agency to restrict access to other emerging women's health products, CQ HealthBeat reports. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, sponsored the event to discuss strategies to prevent potential threats to women's health and urge FDA to take action on Plan B (CQ HealthBeat, 10/17). Former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford, who resigned from his position last month, in August announced that the agency would indefinitely defer Barr's application for nonprescription sales of Plan B to women ages 17 and older. Crawford said that science supports giving nonprescription access to Plan B to women ages 17 and older but added that the application presented FDA "with many difficult and novel policy and regulatory issues." Susan Wood in August resigned as FDA assistant commissioner for women's health in protest of the agency's decision (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/13). After addressing the forum on Monday, Wood told reporters, 'I don't think FDA was acting independently" in refusing to act on Plan B. She said acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach should quickly to approve Plan B for nonprescription sales, adding that if he does not, "we'll know it isn't his decision. We'll know by his actions whether he is independent" (Lumpkin, AP/Boston Globe, 10/18).

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