Posts Tagged plan b

Age restrictions on emergency contraception access are unacceptable

Feministing co-founder Jessica Valenti has a well written and compelling piece in the Nation today on the FDA’s decision to make emergency contraception, or the morning after pill, available over the counter to women older than 15 years old who can “prove their age”.

From the FDA press release:

The product will now be labeled “not for sale to those under 15 years of age *proof of age required* not for sale where age cannot be verified.” Plan B One-Step will be packaged with a product code prompting a cashier to request and verify the customer’s age. A customer who cannot provide age verification will not be able to purchase the product. In addition, Teva has ...

Feministing co-founder Jessica Valenti has a well written and compelling piece in the Nation today on the FDA’s decision to make emergency contraception, or the morning after pill, available over the counter to women older than ...

Pediatricians say emergency contraception should be available to women of all ages

Just days after OB/GYNs called for the pill to be available over-the-counter, pediatricians are recommending that emergency contraception be more readily accessible for teens.

Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius refused to allow EC to be available without a prescription for women under 17. In doing so, she acted contrary to the guidance of the Federal Drug Administration and, you know, science. Now the American Academy of Pediatrics is backing up the FDA and advising doctors to prescribe Plan B in advance until the policy changes.

Via ThinkProgress:

The pediatricians’ group points out that requiring young women to contact a physician for a prescription only after they realize they need emergency contraception presents a significant hurdle for ...

Just days after OB/GYNs called for the pill to be available over-the-counter, pediatricians are recommending that emergency contraception be more readily accessible for teens.

Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius refused to allow EC ...

Plan B comes to some New York City Public Schools

New York City’s Department of Education is launching a pilot program making the morning after pill available to high school aged girls. The CATCH (Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health) program will make emergency accessible for girls as young as 14 without parental consent.

New York City’s public schools may be be the first in the nation to introduce such a program:

The National Association of School Nurses could cite no other school district supplying Plan B.

So far, during an unpublicized pilot program in five city schools last year, 567 students received Plan B tablets and 580 students received Reclipsen birth-control pills, the city Department of Health told The Post.

This fall, students can also get Depo-Provera, a birth-control drug injected once ...

New York City’s Department of Education is launching a pilot program making the morning after pill available to high school aged girls. The CATCH (Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health) program will make emergency accessible for ...

The morning-after pill is not an abortion pill

That’s just some outdated medical information that is repeated on practice, but has never been scientifically proven. According to investigation by the New York Times–the morning-after pill doesn’t stop the fertilized egg from implanting but instead slows down ovulation, before the egg is even fertilized.

It turns out that the politically charged debate over morning-after pills and abortion, an increasingly sensitive issue in this election year, is probably rooted in outdated or incorrect scientific guesses about how the pills work. Because they block creation of fertilized eggs, they would not meet abortion opponents’ definition of abortion-inducing drugs. In contrast, RU-486 is an abortion pill because it destroys implanted embryos, terminating pregnancies.

The implantation idea stems from the Food and Drug Administration’s decision during ...

That’s just some outdated medical information that is repeated on practice, but has never been scientifically proven. According to investigation by the New York Times–the morning-after pill doesn’t stop the fertilized egg from implanting but instead ...

Pharmacists routinely misinform young women about whether they can get emergency contraception

On the heels of the outrageous, unprecedented HHS decision to overrule the FDA’s recommendation to make Plan B fully available without a prescription comes a new study revealing just how inaccessible emergency contraception is–even for those women who theoretically already have over-the-counter access.

Researchers posing as 17-year-old women called pharmacies around the country to ask about getting EC. First off, nearly 20% of the callers were told straight-up that they couldn’t get EC that day–whether because it wasn’t in stock or they didn’t want to give it out or maybe the person who answered the phone hadn’t been trained yet. Regardless, tough luck for the caller who’d really, really like to try to avoid getting pregnant ASAP. ...

Breaking: Sebelius overrules FDA decision on emergency contraception

You have got to be kidding me:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the scientists at the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday and refused to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold as freely as aspirin, setting up just the kind of clash between politics and science that President Obama had promised to avoid.

Under the law, Ms. Sebelius has the authority to overrule the agency, according to an F.D.A. spokeswoman, but no health secretary has ever done so before. Her decision continues a history of political meddling in the agency’s decisions regarding emergency contraceptives that tarnished the drug administration’s credibility during the Bush administration. Ms. Sibelius’s decision to overrule ...

You have got to be kidding me:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the scientists at the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday and refused to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold ...

Breaking: FDA may approve EC to be sold on drugstore shelves

Via our very own Jessica Valenti comes the news that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce tomorrow that it will approve making Plan B (the brand name for emergency contraception or the morning after pill) available for purchase on drugstore shelves.  I think I join a lot of my colleagues in the reproductive justice community in saying that we’re all waiting with bated breath to make sure this optimistic prediction comes true!

From Jess:

The President & CEO of Reproductive Health Technologies Project says “While FDA has toyed with women’s health before, all signs point to them doing the right thing at last and letting the science dictate their ...

Via our very own Jessica Valenti comes the news that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce tomorrow that it will approve making Plan B (the brand name for ...

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