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Memo May Have Swayed Plan B [FDA] Ruling
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| Parent(s) |
Issue
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem May 12, 2005 01:32pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
| News Date | Thursday, May 12, 2005 07:30:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | FDA Received 'Minority Report' From Conservative Doctor on Panel
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 12, 2005; Page A02
Soon after the Food and Drug Administration overruled its advisory panel last year and rejected an application to make an emergency contraceptive more easily available, critics of the agency said it had ignored scientific evidence and yielded to pressure from social conservatives.
The agency denied the charge, but an outspoken evangelical conservative doctor on the panel subsequently acknowledged in a previously unreported public sermon that he was asked to write a memo to the FDA commissioner soon after the panel voted 23 to 4 in favor of over-the-counter sales of the contraceptive, called Plan B. He said he believes his memo played a central role in the rejection of that recommendation.
The new information comes from a videotaped sermon in October by W. David Hager. On the tape, he said he was asked to write a "minority report" that would outline why over-the-counter sales should be rejected.
Speaking at the Asbury College chapel in Wilmore, Ky., Hager said, "I was asked to write a minority opinion that was sent to the commissioner of the FDA. For only the second time in five decades, the FDA did not abide by its advisory committee opinion, and the measure was rejected."
Hager told the group that he had not written his report from an "evangelical Christian perspective," but from a scientific one -- arguing that the panel had too little information on how easier availability of Plan B would affect girls younger than 16. The FDA later cited that lack of information as the reason it rejected the application. |
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