‘Morning after pill’ to be available before 18

The emergency contraceptive pill Plan B will be available over the counter to 17-year-olds by the end of April after a federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration to follow his ruling within 30 days March 23.

Plan B has been available over the counter to women who are 18 and older since 2006, yet the decision to place restrictions on the dispersion of the pill was influenced by the politics of the Bush administration, not women’s safety, United States District Court Judge Edward Korman said in his 52-page ruling. Plan B is also available with a prescription.

The FDA refused to comment on the Plan B mandate, which also encouraged the agency to consider getting rid of all restrictions on the drug. Plan B is currently sold at Planned Parenthood and other health centers, as well as pharmacies including CVS and Walgreens.

‘We are still reviewing the judge’s decision,’ FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research spokeswoman Rita Chappelle said.

Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Chief Executive Officer and President Dianne Luby said the previous restrictions were for purely political motives, not for safety reasons as many claimed.

‘The age requirement for Plan B was never intended to be a safety precaution for young adults, but was actually based on the politics and ideology of the last administration,’ Luby said.

However, Boston University Women’s Resource Center Co-President Liz Metzger said she does not think politics were a driving force behind the decision.

‘ ‘This recent discussion about lowering the age to 17 shows the FDA is actually listening to what health professionals have been requesting since 2001- that Plan B be made available to all women,’ she said.

However, Focus on the Family bioethics analyst Carrie Gordon Earll said the March 23 court ruling appeared to be a decision that was actually based on politics rather than science. Focus on the Family is a prominent evangelical Christian organization.

‘The [FDA] held extensive hearings on research involving Plan B and determined that it was not safe to be available over the counter for girls under 18 years of age’ in large part because only a fraction of the clinical trials conducted on the drug involved girls 16 years of age and younger,’ Earll said.

However, Korman references supplemental studies in his ruling that involved ‘more than 1,000 subjects ages 16 and younger.”

The official Plan B website states ‘safety and efficacy are expected to be the same for adolescents under the age of 16 and for users 16 years and older.’

Luby said Plan B could help lower the teen pregnancy rate, which is the leading cause of failure to graduate in high schools, according to a 2007 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

However, Earll said studies of women with easy access to products like Plan B in the United States and abroad reveal they have the same pregnancy and abortion rates as women who needed a prescription.

Although the Plan B company claims it only has mild side effects, Earll said these may be dangerous for young women’s health.

A College of Arts and Sciences freshman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she resorted to Plan B after having unprotected sex. She said the pill was effective, but that she suffered from some of the side effects.

‘I got really moody and felt depressed and tired for some time,’ she said. ‘I got really bad cramps when my period came, which I don’t usually get.’

Earll said Plan B is up to 15 times stronger than the regular daily dose of a monthly contraceptive pill.

‘Daily doses are only available by physician prescription due to potential risks, so it makes no medical sense to allow Plan B available over the counter,’ Earll said. ‘Especially with access for young,’ developing teenagers who may not know if they have health risks to consider.’

Metzger said many surveyed teens said they want more sex education, and if they receive it, they are more likely to use protection in the first place and not need Plan B.

‘Most of the kids out there have little knowledge of how to use birth control or what their options are,’ the CAS freshman said. ‘Educate them, let them know how the pill works and other birth control options.’