FDA intends to withhold $1.2M of $4M allocated to office of women's health

FDA intends to withhold $1.2 million of the $4 million Congress allocated for the agency's Office of Women's Health in fiscal year 2007, and the remaining $2.8 million has already been allocated or spent, according to an unnamed, high-level agency official, the Washington Post reports.

The official, who is not authorized to speak publicly, said the decision means the women's health office effectively must stop further projects this year.

According to the Post, the Bush administration for several years has requested and Congress has allocated $4 million annually for the office, which was created in 1994.

FDA spokesperson Robert Ali in an e-mail interview said that "the spending plan for the agency is to allow our operating components to spend at least at their 06 level" -- in other words, the full $4 million -- the Post reports.

Agency spokesperson Julie Zawisza in a follow-up e-mail said the agency "INTENDED" to allow the spending at 2006 levels but added that the spending plan was not finalized.

FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach is scheduled to appear before a Senate appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday and a House subcommittee on Wednesday to discuss FDA's 2008 budget.

According to the Post, some women's health advocates inside and outside the agency believe the withheld funding is, at least in part, a "long-anticipated payback for the trouble the office stirred and prolonged" as FDA considered Barr Laboratories' applications for nonprescription sales of its emergency contraceptive Plan B.

FDA in August 2006 approved nonprescription sales of Plan B for women ages 18 and older (Weiss, Washington Post, 2/27).

In September 2005, then-FDA Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health Susan Wood resigned from the agency in protest of the agency's action to indefinitely defer a decision on Barr's application (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 9/1/05).

Martha Nolan, vice president at the Society for Women's Health Research, said she is concerned that the funding withholding was retribution for the Plan B issue, adding, "We fear this is the first step toward eliminating the Office of Women's Health" (Washington Post, 2/27).