Audit Faults FDA On Morning-After Pill

Lawmakers are again accusing the Food and Drug Administration of putting politics over science in the long-running saga over whether the morning-after pill should sell without a prescription. A congressional audit released Monday cited "unusual" steps in the FDA's initial rejection of over-the-counter emergency contraception, including conflicting accounts of whether top officials made the decision even before scientists finished reviewing the evidence. The FDA is reconsidering the decision on the pill, sold under the brand Plan B. While the report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, doesn't say that FDA made the wrong decision, it does raise the most serious questions to date about agency credibility — and increases pressure to settle the issue.

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