[NOW Action List] Send Comments to the FDA by Nov. 1

Support NOW's Work  |	October 24, 2005	|  Tell a Friend

Action Needed Background All NOW Actions Emergency Contraception Update and Alert - September 2005		Send Comments to the FDA by November 1: End Delay on Approval of Over-the-Counter Emergency Contraception Action Needed: On Sept. 26, the FDA delayed its decision on OTC access for Plan B emergency contraception to allow for a 60-day public comment period on the issue. Please submit your comments today to the FDA. NOW activists and others who support the health, safety and decision-making authority of women in their childbearing years must DEMAND that the FDA follow the medical and scientific advice of its committees and permit the sale of EC without a prescription, without age restrictions, and OVER the counter (not "behind the counter" where we must beg a reluctant clerk or pharmacist to give it to us). Background: Women have been waiting for over two years for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow Plan B, also known as emergency contraception (EC), to be sold over-the-counter without a prescription. It seemed as though this decision would finally be made due to a strategic move made by Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) who agreed to remove their "hold" on Lester Crawford's nomination to become Commissioner of the FDA in exchange for the promise of a decision on Plan B by September 1. However, on August 26 the FDA released a statement saying that they would prolong the decision period by more than 60 days in order to solicit public input on technical regulatory questions involving separate packaging and requiring prescriptions for young women 16 and under. Lester Crawford has since resigned from the agency and the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Andrew von Eschenbach, has become acting FDA commissioner. Von Eschenbach, a urologist, was a personal physician for George H.W. Bush ? another example of the cronyism that permeates this administration. Von Eschenbach was encouraged to step down from his job at the NCI, while he took the reins of the FDA because he could face conflict of interest charges as the FDA reviews drugs the NCI has helped develop. Whether von Eschenbach will help restore much of the lost respect for the FDA as a medical scientific organization of some integrity is questionable. In the meantime, von Eschenbach will be making the determination of whether emergency contraception is made readily available to women ? of any age. More Unnecessary Delay - NOW believes that the requested public comment period is a delaying tactic by the FDA to avoid having to make a decision - a decision that might enrage the administration's extremist anti-birth control supporters if they allow EC to be sold without prescription to all women of childbearing age. Polls show that a majority of the public supports emergency contraception and George W. Bush's anti-contraception advocates are far out of the mainstream. Any further delay in easing access to emergency contraception means thousands of unintended pregnancies. We must call the FDA on these anti-woman tactics. It is crucially important that tens of thousands of people send messages so that the FDA knows that vast majority of the public will not stand for this delay of women's rights. NOW activists and others who support the health, safety and decision-making authority of women in their childbearing years must DEMAND that the FDA follow the medical and scientific advice of its committees and permit the sale of EC without a prescription, without age restrictions, and OVER the counter (not "behind the counter" where we must beg a reluctant clerk or pharmacist to give it to us). Instructions: The FDA won't count the comments unless you use a very specific format. Please help us remind them one more time that their job is to promote and protect our health and safety, not the political whims of religious bigots or their patrons, be they the pharmaceutical industry, anti-contraception extremists or the politicians controlling the White House and Congress. The public has until November 1 to submit comments to the FDA about this debate. However the FDA has posed specific questions that the public must answer in order for the FDA to recognize their comments. These questions are somewhat technical and some are purely inconsequential, therefore NOW has developed prepared response. There are two ways you can submit your comments to the FDA. You can print the complete set of comments prepared by NOW and mail or fax them to the FDA. Don't forget to sign your letter once you've printed it! OR You can go to the FDA website and submit your comments electronically. First, open our sample comments in an easy-to-copy-and-paste format. Then, go to the FDA website, enter your contact information, and click "continue". Paste from our prepared comments into the appropriate boxes on the site, or enter your own comments.
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