End the Delays in Naming FDA Commissioner
Posted on: Thursday, 13 April 2006, 06:00 CDT
The following editorial appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday, April 12:
One of President Bush's health-care shortcomings is on full display with the stalled nomination of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
Von Eschenbach is highly qualified, having directed the National Cancer Institute for four years. He is a good choice to oversee needed reforms to modernize the FDA's approach to drug safety and drug approval.
But Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., are blocking the nomination until the FDA announces its decision on over-the-counter sales of the controversial emergency morning-after contraceptive known as Plan B. To those unfamiliar with the issue, the Democratic senators' political maneuvering would seem to be an overreaction. But those who have been watching the Bush administration play politics with the Plan B decision understand that it is instead the Senate drawing a line in the sand and saying enough is enough.
The Senate approved Bush's previous choice to head the FDA, Lester Crawford, only after he promised to act on the request to make Plan B available for sale over the counter. The Senate didn't demand that he approve the request, but merely that he would act upon it. The emergency contraceptive has been available by prescription in the United States since 1999, but the FDA has been dragging its feet for years on a decision on selling Plan B without a prescription.
Crawford reneged, first delaying the decision again, and then resigning two months later.
Von Eschenbach was named interim director after Crawford's resignation. But, as part of the Bush administration, he also has failed to make a decision on Plan B, despite knowing that months ago the agency's scientific review committee deemed it safe for over-the-counter sales.
The problem is the White House continues to kowtow to its conservative base, which opposes Plan B on the grounds that it will lead to increased promiscuity in teenage girls, and its misguided belief that Plan B is, in effect, an abortion pill.
The FDA's own research proves the folly of that thinking. Plan B prevents the fertilization of an egg. It does not result in an abortion. Furthermore, no evidence exists showing that teenagers are more promiscuous because of access to the emergency contraceptive.
Von Eschenbach could go a long way toward restoring the nation's faith in the FDA by following the agency's scientific advice and making Plan B available in drugstores without a prescription. Then, armed with the political clout he'll need, he should go about the more important business of reforming the FDA, including pushing to base future decisions on their scientific merits.
The Bush administration needs to make a decision on Plan B so the problem of who leads the FDA can be settled.
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(c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.).
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Source: San Jose Mercury News
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