Memo May Have Swayed Plan B Ruling
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.
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