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FDA Delays Morning After Pill Status Change

WASHINGTON February 13, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The campaign to keep the Morning After Pill, sold in the US as "Plan B", available only by prescription, is gaining ground in the US. Food and Drug Administration officials voted in December to change the status of Plan B. from prescription-only to over the counter and it was thought that the decisive vote of 24 to 3 would have been the end of the matter. However, last month a letter was sent to President Bush by 49 members of Congress bringing up the issues of concern to pro-life and pro-family advocates. The FDA has sent a list of questions to the drug's manufacturer, Barr Laboratories, bringing up these issues.

Rep. David Joseph Weldon (R-Fla.) wrote President Bush about Plan B saying that the wide distribution of the drug without a prescription would result in exactly the opposite outcome to the one desired. Instead of preventing teenage pregnancies, the availability of Plan B would encourage more promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.

Pro-abortion advocates of Plan B have objected to the delay saying that it is politically motivated. A member of the FDA advisory panel, James Trussell, said, "There is a real swirl of concern right now". Trussell is the director of Princeton University's Office of Population Research, an organization with close ties to the population control engines at the United Nations and with International Planned Parenthood Federation, another group heavily lobbying for the change. Members of the panel, he said, expected the decision to move forward without opposition.

However, the concerns of pro-family advocates were voiced by Weldon at a press conference last month, "There is a great potential that the easy availability of Plan B will contribute to unsafe sexual practices and the future spread of [sexually transmitted diseases] and HIV-AIDS among adolescents." The FDA is taking those concerns seriously. The agency must rule on Barr Laboratories' application by Feb. 20.

See Washington Post coverage:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38015-2004Feb12.html

See also:
Pro-Life Doctors Group Wants FDA to Halt "Morning-After" Pill Sales
http://www.prolifeinfo.com/nat310.html

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