Morning-After
Maneuvers
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, August 30, 2005
Just when we thought that the Food
and Drug Administration had run out of excuses to avoid ruling on whether the
morning-after pill should be made available without a prescription, the agency
found yet another lame reason to delay. Last week the F.D.A. finally
acknowledged that science supports granting over-the-counter access to the pill,
known as Plan B, to women 17 and older. But the agency said it needed more
time to ponder novel regulatory issues as well as the practical question of how
to keep the pill out of the hands of younger girls.
Such issues will require a 60-day comment period, when opponents of the pill
will barrage the agency with reasons why the pill should not be made available
without a prescription, followed by an indefinite period of thumb-sucking within
the agency. All we have is a pledge from the agency's commissioner, Lester
Crawford, that he will expedite the decision, but after the agency's past
refusals to act, that pledge must be taken skeptically.
The agency's justification for the delay is that Plan B supposedly raises
unprecedented policy issues, including whether age can be a criterion for
determining whether a drug should be available only by prescription or sold over
the counter, and whether the same package and dosage can be used for both
versions. That explanation is hard to accept at face value. The
agency has known for more than a year that the manufacturer, to surmount
previous F.D.A. objections, is proposing that age be such a criterion. If
profound issues have been raised, the agency has had plenty of time to grapple
with them.
The morning-after pill has been safely used by millions of women in this country
and abroad, and an F.D.A. advisory committee overwhelmingly recommended that it
be made available without a prescription. If the F.D.A. ultimately uses
age-criterion issues as an excuse for blocking easy access, the manufacturer
should apply to sell the pill over the counter to any woman, regardless of age.
|
