Here's the press release from the group that's really been pressing the FDA hard: the Morning After Pill conspiracy.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—             
August 1, 2006

THE MORNING-AFTER PILL CONSPIRACY:
- Annie Tummino, Women's Liberation Birth Control Project,
- Erin Mahoney, Women's Liberation Birth Control Project,
- Kelly Mangan, Chair, Florida NOW Young Feminist Task Force,
- Stephanie Seguin, Gainesville (Fla.) Women's Liberation,

WOMEN SUE FDA OVER MORNING-AFTER PILL ACCESS,
SAY AGE RESTRICTION BLOCKS ACCESS FOR ALL WOMEN

Monday the Food and Drug Administration announced its plans to take steps towards making the Morning-After Pill (brand name Plan B) available without a prescription only for women 18 and older. This is the first time in history that the Food and Drug Administration has proposed the creation of a separate status for a non-prescription drug, and it is testimony to the pressure being put on the FDA by anti-birth control extremists in Congress and in the White House.

Annie Tummino, of the Morning-After Pill Conspiracy coalition, said that the FDA is keeping the Morning-After Pill from women who need it. Tummino is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the FDA charging the agency with applying a sexist double-standard to the Morning-After Pill (MAP) that is does not apply to other drugs. The lawsuit is seeking over-the-counter access to the Morning-After Pill for all ages.

"If you're old enough to get pregnant, you're old enough to decide that you don't want to be pregnant." Tummino said. "Putting an age restriction on the Morning-After Pill creates serious obstacles to all women's access and still places reproductive choices in someone else's hands."

While the proposed age has quietly climbed from 16 to 18 in the past two years, the FDA's excuse for the restriction remains the same: access to the Morning-After Pill might increase the likelihood that teenagers will have unprotected sex. But the FDA continues to ignore evidence from a study released by the Journal of the American Medical Association in January of 2005 which found that easier access to MAP does not "compromise" young women's "contraceptive or sexual behavior."  
If the FDA is really so concerned with safe sex, it should push men to wear condoms, not punish women by withholding birth control.

The MAP Conspiracy opposes any age restriction to the Morning-After Pill because it effectively makes MAP a behind-the-counter (or pharmacist-prescribed) drug, requiring that women show a pharmacist their ID before getting this safe, effective contraceptive. Besides the sexist insult of being carded for birth control, an age restriction also means that women have to find pharmacies that stock MAP and pharmacists willing to fill their prescriptions within the first 24 hours after sex, when MAP is most effective in preventing pregnancy.  In contrast, full over-the-counter status would mean that MAP would be found on the shelf next to medicines like aspirin and could be sold in convenience stores and gas stations.

"The FDA's proposed age restriction is just another in a long list of delay tactics the agency has used over the past three years," Tummino said.  "Feminists will continue to pressure the FDA until we get the Morning-After Pill over-the-counter for all women."  

*****
The Morning-After Pill Conspiracy is a grassroots coalition of feminist groups working for over-the-counter access to the Morning-After Pill for all women, regardless of age. MAP Conspiracy is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the prescription requirement to the Morning-After Pill which forces women to get the drug illegally, through their friends, because they cannot get it from their doctors in time to prevent pregnancy. Since February of 2003, members of the coalition have broken the law by passing out the Morning-After Pill in defiance of the prescription requirement. More than 4,000 women across the country have signed a pledge of civil disobedience to give their friends the Morning-After Pill in defiance of the prescription requirement and until it is available over-the-counter for all women ( www.mapconspiracy.org).

The Morning-After Pill is a higher dose of regular birth control pills, and works in the same way to prevent pregnancy. The American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the FDA's own expert medical advisory committees, and more than 70 other medical and U.S. health organizations say the Morning-After Pill is safe for over-the-counter sales. In 38 other countries it can be purchased without a doctor's prescription.
CONTACT THE MORNING-AFTER PILL CONSPIRACY:
www.mapconspiracy.org
mapconspiracy04@hotmail.com
646-853-7100
352-380-9934

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That timeline is so amazing! great work Ann!

Thanks!

If you're at all interested, I'm discussing Plan B on the Young Turks podcast later today, and on Bay Area public radio (KPFA) tomorrow morning.

Hey, I'm wondering: is it possible to substitute any other birth control Pills for Plan B? For example, if you're taking the (imaginary) Painless series, would it be possible to look up somewhere how many of your regular pills could be taken at one time and again at what particular time to serve the same purpose?

It's possible, but not recommended without talking to your doctor first. Planned Parenthood has a list of oral contraceptive brands and the number of pills that should be taken for use as EC.

Many common oral contraceptive pills can be used as ECPs, although their manufacturers do not label the pills for this use. "Off-label" use of approved medications is legal and commonplace in American medicine. Further, in February 1997, the FDA declared emergency use of birth control pills, following the Yuzpe regimen, to be safe and effective.

Monthly birth control pills have been used off-label as EC since the 1960s, when the first oral contraceptives were FDA-approved. But Plan B is the recommended method because it contains exactly the right dosage.