Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) last week said they planned to block a full Senate vote on FDA Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford's nomination to head the agency because of FDA's delay in issuing a decision about whether to approve Barr Laboratories' application to allow the emergency contraceptive Plan B to be sold without a doctor's prescription. FDA in January was expected to rule on a revised version of Barr's application, which would allow the emergency contraceptive Plan B to be sold without a doctor's prescription to women ages 17 and older but be dispensed only with a doctor's prescription for girls ages 16 and younger. However, the agency instead announced that the decision would be delayed. On March 17, Crawford in a confirmation hearing told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that FDA would approve the application "within weeks." The agency in May 2004 issued a "not approvable" letter in response to Barr's original application, which would have allowed Plan B to be sold to any woman without a doctor's prescription. The agency based its recommendation on a decision made by Steven Galson, acting director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. However, his decision contradicted the recommendations of two agency advisory panels and cited inadequate data on the use of the pills among girls ages 16 and younger (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 4/7). Several newspapers recently have published opinion pieces on the senators' blocking of Crawford's nomination and the agency's delayed decision on Plan B. Some of them are summarized below.

Editorials

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Rodham Clinton and Murray have "good cause" for "frustrations," and their decision to block Crawford's confirmation could "force the FDA to address a matter of science and public health," a Post-Intelligencer editorial says. The Bush administration needs to "stop playing politics" over Plan B because there is "no valid reason" for the delay in issuing a ruling on the revised application, according to the editorial. "Until the FDA gets a grip on science, the senators should hold firm about Crawford's nomination," the editorial concludes (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4/8).
  


• Springfield Republican: "Unfortunately, women are still being denied access" to EC, which has been found to be "safe and effective," a Republican editorial says. FDA should "turn a deaf ear to the politics, listen to its own experts and approve the drug," the editorial says, concluding, "Members of the FDA's advisory panel decided there is no scientific reason to limit its availability. Plan B should be the FDA's new Plan A" (Springfield Republican, 4/8).
  

Opinion Piece

• Robyn Blumner, St. Petersburg Times: Plan B has not been approved to be sold without a doctor's prescription because of "abortion politics" and because FDA values "ideology over science," columnist Blumner writes in a Times opinion piece. Although EC is "remarkably safe and highly effective" at preventing pregnancy and could prevent about 800,000 abortions each year, the Bush administration has put up "unreasonable barriers" to selling the pills without a doctor's prescription, according to Blumner. "Millions of American women may need emergency contraception in the next few years," Blumner says, concluding, "But their ability to obtain it will be unnecessarily complicated until some semblance of common sense returns to Washington" (Blumner, St. Petersburg Times, 4/10).