D
David_Paul
Guest
Village Voice
by Kristen Lombardi
September 12th, 2005
Just two months ago, George Bush’s administration offered Hillary Clinton a deal. If the New York junior senator quit blocking the president’s nominee to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she’d get something in return—a decision on over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill. The status of the drug, a booster dose of the common birth control pill approved by an FDA advisory panel and the staff itself, has been under consideration for nearly two years.
The senator got all the necessary assurances. Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt promised in a July 13 letter that the FDA, under his oversight, “will act on this application by September 1.” And Senator Michael Enzi, the Republican chair of the committee handling the nomination, on which Clinton sits, pledged to hold a hearing if the promise wasn’t kept. And so Clinton, along with her colleague Patty Murray of Washington, got out of the way. Five days later, the Senate confirmed the new FDA commissioner, Lester Crawford.
Then came August 26, when Crawford announced his agency was taking “action” on the morning-after pill, or Plan B. The FDA did not do what Clinton had anticipated—that is, unveil a ruling on whether to make Plan B available without a prescription. Instead, it indefinitely postponed any ruling. While Crawford admitted that Plan B is safe, he said the age restrictions on teenage girls’ access to it—age restrictions the agency had requested to begin with—have raised legal issues that need examining in a process that could take months, or longer.
Continued here:
villagevoice.com/news/0537,lombardi,67735,6.html
{moderator’s note. Edited article. Please keep article quotes short (1-3 paragraphs in length)}
by Kristen Lombardi
September 12th, 2005
Just two months ago, George Bush’s administration offered Hillary Clinton a deal. If the New York junior senator quit blocking the president’s nominee to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she’d get something in return—a decision on over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill. The status of the drug, a booster dose of the common birth control pill approved by an FDA advisory panel and the staff itself, has been under consideration for nearly two years.
The senator got all the necessary assurances. Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt promised in a July 13 letter that the FDA, under his oversight, “will act on this application by September 1.” And Senator Michael Enzi, the Republican chair of the committee handling the nomination, on which Clinton sits, pledged to hold a hearing if the promise wasn’t kept. And so Clinton, along with her colleague Patty Murray of Washington, got out of the way. Five days later, the Senate confirmed the new FDA commissioner, Lester Crawford.
Then came August 26, when Crawford announced his agency was taking “action” on the morning-after pill, or Plan B. The FDA did not do what Clinton had anticipated—that is, unveil a ruling on whether to make Plan B available without a prescription. Instead, it indefinitely postponed any ruling. While Crawford admitted that Plan B is safe, he said the age restrictions on teenage girls’ access to it—age restrictions the agency had requested to begin with—have raised legal issues that need examining in a process that could take months, or longer.
Continued here:
villagevoice.com/news/0537,lombardi,67735,6.html
{moderator’s note. Edited article. Please keep article quotes short (1-3 paragraphs in length)}
