Reply #119: the FDA DID determine it to be safe to offer OTC!

[sonicx]

their panel of scientists ALREADY DID THAT. the reason it hasn't been approved to actually go over the counter is because of RW ideologs in FDA.

BTW, "dispensed like pez" is a scare tactic. MAPs are used has *last resorts*. They are expensive and have lower success rates, so people are incouraged not to rely on them over other methods if possible (sometimes it is not).

EDIT:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-05-06-fda-morning-after_x.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) — Women's groups are accusing the Bush administration of putting politics before science in rejecting over-the-counter sales of morning-after birth control, even as the agency stressed Friday that it will reconsider that decision if given more data.

The FDA cited concern about young teenagers' use of emergency contraception without a doctor's guidance — overruling the agency's own scientific advisers, who had overwhelmingly backed easier access as a safe way to prevent thousands of abortions.

And:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48377-2005Jan4.html

Providing women with easy access to the emergency contraceptive Plan B did not lead them to engage in more risky sexual behavior, a study of more than 2,000 California women has concluded.

The study did find that women given a supply to keep at home were more than 1 1/2 times as likely to use the drug after unprotected sex as those who had to pick it up at a clinic or pharmacy. The findings led the study authors to conclude that easy access to Plan B, also called the morning-after pill, could reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies while posing no apparent risk to women.

snip

The new study, being published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, supports the position taken by much of the FDA review staff and 23 of 27 members of the FDA advisory panel that the drug could be safely and properly used without a prescription.