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A victory for the morning-after pill
Opinion: A victory for the morning-after pill - CNN.com
Im glad this nonsense is over, if it met the requirements of other drugs not restricted there was ZERO reason to restrict this one.
The FDA assess danger and effectiveness etc. not morals.
Backup links:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...mply-with-new-york-morning-after-pill-ruling/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/10/health/court-birth-control/index.html
Opinion: A victory for the morning-after pill - CNN.com
The fight started a year and a half ago, when apparently for the first time in history, the secretary of health and human services overruled a Food and Drug Administration decision. The FDA said Plan B should be sold the way aspirin is sold -- with no restrictions. The Obama administration wanted age limits; a coalition of reproductive rights groups sued the government, and on Monday, the Justice Department backed down and ended the legal wrangling
Plan B is safe. Long before HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA, adults could buy it without a prescription. If you were 17 and could show identification proving your age, you could also buy the drug without a prescription. If you were 16 and younger, you needed one.
This is not the way drugs are normally treated. Usually, there are prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs. Few fall into this prove-your-age category. Pseudoephedrine does, for instance, because people are concerned you might take it and make crystal meth. But the vast, vast majority of medications do not. To enact this kind of pre-authorization, you'd need a compelling reason.
As the FDA conducted the review that informed its decision, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research specifically evaluated whether Plan B was safe and effective in younger girls, whether they understood its proper use, and whether they appreciated that it wouldn't protect them from sexually transmitted infections. The center found that girls did understand all of these points, and that's why it ruled that it could be sold to them without a prescription.
This argument seems to be applied only to Plan B, and not any other drugs. For instance, in 2011, more than 117,000 calls were made to poison control centers for kids under the age of 5 because of exposure to pain medications. More than 44,000 calls were made for small children exposed to antihistamines. Even more calls were made for adults. These drugs cause thousands of problems a year, and sometimes even deaths. Yet no one thinks about making those medications harder to get.
Im glad this nonsense is over, if it met the requirements of other drugs not restricted there was ZERO reason to restrict this one.
The FDA assess danger and effectiveness etc. not morals.
Backup links:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...mply-with-new-york-morning-after-pill-ruling/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/10/health/court-birth-control/index.html
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