DRUG MONEY: The Baby Murdering Bush Administration's FDA

Editor's note: The Bush administration is to meet with drug dealers from Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE: BRL), on Tuesday, August 8, 2006, to discuss details of an agreement under which the Bush administration will approve over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill. The following news editorials hit the Internet today in a well timed collaboration with the pharmaceutical company's public relations' media blitz to help gain approval of its deadly abortifacient. If over-the-counter sales are approved by the Republican administration, the drug company stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars killing babies in the womb, which will profit the stockholders, who in turn will line the pockets of blood-guilty politicians.

Plan B Decision Made Before Data Review: FDA Staff
Scientific American
WASHINGTON -- The decision whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should approve wider access to a morning-after contraceptive drug was made well before agency scientists finished their final review, two FDA officials said in court documents released on Thursday. Supporters of over-the-counter sales for Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Plan B pills have accused top FDA officials of hindering the company's bid for nonprescription sales for years, to please conservative supporters of President George W. Bush's administration.

Plan B: To Shelve, or Not to Shelve
By Josh Fischman / U.S. News & World Report
As Andrew von Eschenbach settled into a chair in a U.S. Senate hearing room in Washington, D.C., last week, Kevin Stormans sat down in his office in the other Washington, the Evergreen State. Both men prepared for the same thing: tough questions about their refusal to allow the sale of Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill for women.

Paper: Plan B pill should be available to girls under 18
Salt Lake Tribune Editorial
Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach did his best last week to defend his indefensible decision to allow over-the-counter sales of the Plan B contraceptive only to women 18 and older. But Von Eschenbach's feeble explanation during his nomination hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was based neither on sound science [sic] nor on sound public policy. That leaves only politics and religious ideology, either a poor basis on which to make health-related decisions that affect millions of young women.

Having Sex? Use Plan B
Los Angeles Times Editorial
Plan B was back in the news last week with the Food and Drug Administration's announcement that it would allow over-the-counter sales of the substance if access is restricted to adults. The drug, which prevents pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, has become its own odd beachhead in the war over reproductive rights, with opponents arguing that it would encourage promiscuity or worse. According to the New York Times, a conservative group called Concerned Women for America worries that "you could have a statutory rapist buy the drug in order to cover up his abuse." That's an extreme bit of sophistry, but logic often falls prey to emotion on the front lines of the reproductive divide.

The Morning After
Safe emergency contraceptives should be
available to women on drugstore counters
Florida Today
With its neck in a vise, the Federal Drug Administration has finally made the right choice and is reconsidering over-the-counter sale of the morning-after pill. If taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, the pill -- which is often prescribed to rape victims -- cuts the risk of unintended pregnancy dramatically.

FDA Nomination Hinges On Morning-After Pill Approval
By Kathy Jones / Food Consumer
The confirmation of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach as the new FDA commissioner appears to hinge on approval for the morning-after pill, Plan B. That is why after dithering for three-years, the Food and Drug Administration decided to consider approving Plan B for over-the-counter sales. Two Senate Democrats, Patty Murray of Washington and Hillary Clinton of New York have made it clear that unless Plan B is approved, von Eschenbach can bid goodbye to the FDA. The Senators say that they want a clear path on how Plan B would be approved. They are not prepared to consider pledges.

FDA Needs A Scientist, Not Another Politician
Roanoke Times Editorial
As acting director of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach has stayed the president's course. The FDA remains a political agency concerned more with the fiscal health of business than the physical health of Americans, and one in which the president's social values overrule sound science. President Bush plans to reward him and has asked the Senate to confirm his nomination. Senators need to look beyond von Eschenbach's impeccable résumé. His credentials, including the helm of the National Cancer Institute, are indeed impressive, but they are overshadowed by his peccant reputation for ignoring science when it contradicts his political agenda.

Time for Plan B
Daily Californian Editorial
Recent behavior by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has once again confirmed that its decision-making-which should be based on science-has instead been infiltrated by politics. It's unfortunate that the FDA has attempted to sidestep the facts about the "morning-after pill," or Plan B, by halting approval of its over-the-counter sale to those over the age of 18. And if that wasn't bad enough, the FDA has been toying with medicine at its own convenience, raising the promise of approving the drug to usher in Bush appointees.

FDA should end delays on Plan B sales
Lincoln Journal Star Editorial
The shameful political games over the Plan B emergency contraceptive are well into their third year, but there is some hope that the bickering over this vital subject may soon be at an end. It would be folly, however, to assume we’ve reached the endgame. We’ve been led down this road before.

Birth Control
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial
ISSUE: The FDA pulls Plan B out of limbo. News that the Food and Drug Administration may make Plan B available for over-the-counter sale to women 18 and older should come as welcome relief, especially after the application spent years being held hostage by politics. But given the agency's unusual history of gamesmanship on the topic, women's health advocates are right to view this sudden about-face with suspicion and scrutiny.

Posted by Editor at August 7, 2006 03:53 AM