For the past two years, the Etter Health Center at Shippensburg University, a small-town Pennsylvania school, has provided access to a vending machine that dispenses Plan B One-Step® (among other health products) to students at a cost of $25. While politicians and political elites continue to get their knickers in a twist over contraception, it is heartening to see some public health experts who just get it.
Physician to President’s Scientific Advisors: Plan B Decision Hurt Science, Medicine, Women’s Health
“As doctors, we prescribe and recommend Plan B to adolescents and adults, knowing it is safer than Tylenol and many other products sold on drugstores’ open shelves.”
Kathleen Sebelius clearly upheld restrictions on emergency contraception as a naked political move, but it wasn’t even smart politics. Young women, a big voting bloc for Democrats, are insulted and will likely be demoralized by this decision.
In what can only be called an astounding move, today Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overruled a much-awaited decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter (OTC) to women of all ages. No HHS Secretary has ever before overruled an FDA decision, according to the New York Times.
