And it's another stonking victory for George W... Oh... no, sorry... just looks like him.

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Last Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step, commonly known as the "morning-after pill", be available over the counter without age restriction. The FDA had researched the pill and concluded that it was safe and effective for nonprescription use and that adolescents could use it properly without the intervention of a healthcare provider. The same day, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA's recommendation. Sebelius said she was concerned that the manufacturer had not studied whether 11-year-olds, some of whom are capable of bearing children, would fully comprehend the product's label and appropriate use. As a result, the emergency contraceptive will continue to be sold behind the counter at pharmacies, and women under the age of 17 will continue to require a prescription to access it. Soon following the decision, President Obama said that he supported Sebelius' stance. "As the father of two young daughters," he said, "I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine." He said that 10 year olds should not step into a drugstore and be able to buy, "alongside bubble gum or batteries", a medicine that could have adverse effects if used incorrectly. Though the health secretary has the authority to overrule the FDA, this is the first time one has ever done so. This exercise of power signals a worrying trend in the Obama administration. Since Obama's election, he has stated time and again, how his administration would rely on science and not ideology. When Obama overrode the Bush-era ban on stem cell research, for instance, he said: "Promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry […] It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." In her statement, Sebelius used the logic of science to justify her decision. Specifically, she claimed that the data submitted by Plan B's manufacturer did not "conclusively establish" that young adolescents could safely use the drug. However, the preponderance of evidence behind Plan B's safety, efficacy and comprehension suggests that the decision was determined not by science, but by ideology. Plan B primarily works by suppressing ovulation, and although some have suggested it can induce abortion, the most recent studies have shown that it is only a contraceptive. It is 89% effective in preventing pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex and it has no serious side effects. There are important societal benefits to this: notably, increased availability of Plan B has been linked to a decrease in abortion rates (pdf). Moreover, most women, including adolescents as young as 12, have consistently demonstrated a good understanding of how the drug is used and the occasions that warrant its use. In one qualitative study, researchers found that "neither younger nor older teens revealed an intention […] to use Plan B as their primary form of contraception." In any case, the drug's price – a single dose costs between $30 and $50 – would likely deter most sexually active adolescents from using it frequently. Sebelius used scientific uncertainty to justify her stance on Plan B. Yet, she and previous health secretaries have made countless decisions in the face of uncertainty, including some more consequential than the uncertainty of Plan B label comprehension by 11 year olds. When the FDA approved cholesterol-lowering Lipitor for the prevention of heart attacks in 2004, the data had not conclusively determined whether it would be effective for women or people over 65. Despite these populations being significantly larger than the population of sexually active and menstruating 11-year-old girls, the FDA and health secretary still approved Lipitor. Henry Pollack, author of Uncertain Science, Uncertain World, warns that policymakers excessively use uncertainty as an excuse to delay or reject scientific decisions. In a talk at the University of Michigan, he said, "Waiting until uncertainty is eliminated is generally impossible. When you hear a call for postponing decision-making because of scientific uncertainty, it's an implicit endorsement of the status quo." In this case, the decision to "maintain the status quo" appears to be based on ideas of the importance of parental oversight and the unease of adolescents having sex lives. When Obama chose to mention his role as "the father of two daughters" in a policy discussion, he essentially, in the eyes of one feminist writer, "recast the debate as an episode of 'Father Knows Best', reaffirm[ing] hoary attitudes about young women and sex." Obama aides even admitted to reporters that the decision was rooted "less in science than in a gut feeling that teenagers might not be ready to make decisions about pregnancy". Not surprisingly, many supporters of the decision have congratulated the administration on similarly non-scientific grounds. One editorial discussed how approving the pill for nonprescription use would have sent a "bad message" to pre-teens, namely that "risky sexual behavior can be undone by simply taking a pill in the next day or so". Others have noted how allowing minors to buy the pill "would [have] undermined parental oversight and set minors up for exploitation by adult sexual predators". The decision to keep Plan B off drugstore shelves is an unfortunate one. Wider access to the drug would have been a safe and effective way to reduce teenage pregnancy rates, which have been on the rise. As long as the Obama administration continues to make its decisions on women's health issues based on ideology and not science, it will continue to see similar trends.

No Plan B: Obama abandons science on morning-after pill | Sarika Bansal | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

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that's a man for you.

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Give unto Caesar that what is Caesar's, and lie like hell to keep as much of the rest of your shit as you can.

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and no plan b for minors is a hell of a lot different then the sensational no plan b obama abandons science headline......

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Give unto Caesar that what is Caesar's, and lie like hell to keep as much of the rest of your shit as you can.

"If you want something said ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman" Margaret Thatcher

Originally Posted by LiberalNation

and no plan b for minors is a hell of a lot different then the sensational no plan b obama abandons science headline......

Not really.

The problem is a lot of people probably don't understand what Plan B is or how it works.

In a nutshell its a do-over condom for women that doesn't prevent STDs and is less effective than an actual condom.

Its not an abortion pill.... if it were then this would be an entirely different conversation, but its not.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Obama promised to listen to the scientists ? so why restrict the morning-after pill? | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | The Guardian

Quote:

The Republican party's self-serving and dangerous disregard of science has been a rash on the American government for some time, one that blistered into a seeping sore under George W Bush's administration. Bush politicised science the way he politicised religion, two acts that have no place in an enlightened and democratic society. Needless to say, these two acts frequently overlapped, with the Bush administration repeatedly ignoring the advice of scientists about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies – promoting unrealistic chastity programmes instead – as much as he did about climate change. In the early days of his presidency, President Obama repeatedly cited this massive failing of the previous administration as a point of difference, promising to "return science to its rightful place" in his inaugural speech. Last week, he broke that promise, badly. Scientists have been grumbling about the current administration for some time. Last year the LA Times interviewed scientists who claimed that politics often took precedence over science, citing cases such as the decision to fight the gulf oil spill with toxic chemical dispersants despite scientists' concerns. Last week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed the administration that, after careful study, Plan B, the morning after pill, was safe and should, at last, be made available to teenagers without prescription. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human resources, rejected this. The New Yorker's Michael Specter wrote that this was "the first time anyone can remember that a health secretary publicly opposed the recommendation of the FDA commissioner." Obama backed Sebelius, citing concerns about a "10- or 11-year-old" being able to pick it up "alongside bubble gum". He added, "As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine." Speaking as a daughter myself, I'd rather not be used as an excuse to make it harder for teenage girls to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Taking – for the briefest of seconds – the deranged suggestion that easier access to Plan B will lead to rampant nymphomania among American children, according to the most recent data, of the 758,000 pregnancies in girls who are teenage or younger that happen on average annually in America, 212 involve 12-year-olds or younger. That is, of course, 212 too many but Obama is diverting attention from the real problem by focusing on the 0.0002% here. Also, I don't know which teenagers the Obama administration has been hanging out with but I have yet to meet one who is about to have sex only to pause and think, "Wait! Will this be harder to sort out tomorrow? Yes! I shall pull up my knickers, then!" The idea that making Plan B harder to get will stop young people from having sex is bitingly reminiscent of the Republican right's theory that teaching sexual education in schools will cause teenagers who would otherwise remain chaste to have sex. Presumably these people also believe that if you don't teach children table manners they won't eat. The government might not like the idea of teenagers having sex, but making it more difficult for them to deal with the fallout is dangerously delusional. Finally, to bring his daughters into the equation insinuates moral and intellectual superiority by dint of being a parent; it also personalises and, by extension, politicises a scientific issue in a downright Bush-ian manner. Speaking of whom, this is not the first time greater availability of Plan B has been rejected. It happened under Bush, too, in 2004, when the FDA rejected the recommendations of its advisory board. Susan Wood quit the FDA in protest at the time. On Sunday, she appeared on the MSNBC news channel: "I just can't believe I'm talking about this again," she said, sadly. Few can.

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Don't worry, he'll overturn it after he wins re-election.

Just like the giant, environment destroying pipeline, thats going to pump millions of barrels of one of the dirtiest, least efficient energy sources on the planet (shale oil) down to the Gulf of Mexico so it can be shipped out to China. And once its finished they can lay off 95% of the people they hired when the project started.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell