FDA's Morning-After Pill Decision Probed

[friesianrider]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051114/ap_on_he_me/morning_after_pill

WASHINGTON - Top federal health officials may have rejected easier access to the morning-after pill before reviewing all the scientific evidence, according to an independent audit Monday that renewed charges that politics trumped science.

Congressional auditors reported that the Food and Drug Administration's May 2004 decision on emergency contraception deviated from 10 years of agency practice in evaluating over-the-counter sales of prescription drugs — and was unusual in several respects.

Critics in Congress declared their suspicions confirmed and urged the FDA's boss to intervene to assure that a still pending reconsideration of the pill's fate isn't based on ideology.

"We are deeply opposed to this subversion of science," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and 17 other lawmakers wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt on Monday. "It appears that the decision ... was preordained from the outset."

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