Morning After at the FDA

Decision on the morning-after pill is delayed again. Is the FDA playing politics?

Is politics keeping the long-delayed emergency contraceptive known as the morning- after pill, or Plan B, off the over-the-counter market? Advocates of making the drug more easily available were infuriated when U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Lester Crawford announced on Aug. 26 that he was delaying a decision on the pill yet again to allow time for additional study and public comment. Assistant commissioner Susan Wood, who heads the FDA'S Office of Women's Health, last week resigned in protest, saying she could "no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by...

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