Youth group calls Bush hypocritical over Plan B

Nov 15 2005

Advocates for Youth, a national, nonprofit organization that creates programs and supports policies that help young people make safe, responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive health, say that a report by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirms that politics and ideology have over-ridden science in the FDA's decision not to make the emergency contraception pill Plan B available without a prescription.

The group says the report shows the FDA's decision on EC was 'unusual,' at best, and had nothing to do with imposing consistent standards of public health and everything to do with appeasing the administration's conservative base.

They also say the report substantiates the claims of the FDA's deputy in charge of women's health, Dr. Susan Wood, who recently resigned on the grounds that the decision to block Plan B was clearly based on politics rather than the science behind the issue.

The medication had the approval of the American Medical Association and it is clear that the World Health Organization's own advisory committee believed emergency contraception to be completely safe, and recommended approval of non-prescription status without an age restriction.

Advocates for Youth believes the administration and its ultra-conservative allies though they claim that they wish to eliminate abortion, continue to slow access to a form of birth control that could reduce the number of abortions by 70 percent.

James Wagoner, the president of Advocates for Youth, says that if hypocrisy were an Olympic event, the gold medal would definitely have to go to the Bush administration and the FDA leadership for continuing to block non-prescription access to emergency contraception, and blaming youth in the process.