Surprise everyone!! The decision to deny Barr Labs OTC status for Plan B was...hold your breath...POLITICAL!! And now the GAO has the proof, and report, that proves it.
more after the break
Via
Thinkprogress:
FDA officials, including the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of New Drugs and the Directors of the Offices of Drug Evaluation III and V, told us that they were told by high-level management that the Plan B OTC switch application would be denied months before staff had completed their reviews of the application. The Director and Deputy Director of the Office of New Drugs told us that they were told by the Acting Deputy Commissioner for Operations43 and the Acting Director of CDER, after the Plan B public meeting in December 2003, that the decision on the Plan B application would be not-approvable. They informed us that they were also told that the direction for this decision came from the Office of the Commissioner. ... Both office reviews were not completed until April 2004.
If anyone claims honest surprise, I label that person a bald-faced liar. This is INCREDIBLE that the GAO had the balls, and guts, to nail this down. If I'm Barr Labs, I'm going to sue for BILLIONS in damages. If I'm a woman, I'm not going to vote Republican again. F'ing criminals in this Administration....CRIMINALS...
To all you pro-lifers (can I say pro-orphans?), how many ADDITIONAL abortions did your FDA weenie CAUSE because you helped keep this drug out of a woman's hands?
Full link (as best as I can find) to the whole report is here