"The FDA is siding with our nation's teens & their health" ...YEAH RIGHT

Yet another "What the F***!" moment has occured, this time with the Food and Drug Administration. Yesterday, the FDA rejected the proposal to allow the "morning-after" contraceptive pill to be sold over the counter without a perscription. This decision in the face of an overwhelming vote of the FDA's medical examininers to the contrary.

In the reasoning behind the decision, the FDA leadership stated: "there was no evidence teens younger than 16 could safely use the pills without a doctor’s guidance." In an internal FDA memo, which was attained by the Associated Press, it was explained that the medical reviewers (doctors) within the FDA, but was overruled by senior FDA officials. "Some staff have expressed the concern that this decision is based on non-medical implications of teen sexual behavior, or judgments about the propriety of this activity,” said the memo, written by FDA acting drug chief Dr. Steven Galson. “These issues are beyond the scope of our drug approval process, and I have not considered them in this decision.”

Damn right they are beyond the approval process of the FDA. Conservatives have been pressuring the FDA on the morning-after pill for months, and it appears that the FDA cracked under that pressure. So instead of basing a medical decision on medicine and the advice of doctors, the FDA is basing a medical decision on "moral objections" and the conservative belief that the morning-after pill encourages teen sexual activity.

The statement made in this post's title was made by conservative Representative Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida and is an example of the conservatives' position...a position based on their personal moral objections to sex and not medical evidence.

This issue is similar to the needle exchange post I wrote on April 5th. The issue concerning the availability of morning-after contraceptives is not a moral one, but a public safety and health one. At the point we place individual and biased "moral objections" on a public health issue, it's the beginning of the end.

I seriously hope the FDA will reconsider their decision and allow morning-after contraceptive pills to be purchased without a prescription. You can learn more about this issue by visiting Planned Parenthood.

Have a good weekend, a good Mother's Day, see ya all next week.