Ah. So the
real reason the FDA is blocking over-the-counter Plan B is -- drumroll, please -- it might "lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B." According to
Newsday, the
Center for Reproductive Rights will grill FDA brass about the "wacky" worries of deputy operations commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock:
Simon Heller, one of the attorneys, plans to quiz Woodcock on a March 23, 2004, staff memo suggesting she was concerned Plan B might lead to teenage promiscuity.
The FDA is only supposed to consider the safety and efficacy of drugs.
In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."
Continued...
Rosebraugh indicated he found no reason to bar nonprescription sales of Plan B.
"This was the level of scientific discourse," Heller said in an interview, referring to concerns attributed to Woodcock. "I find it very odd that these people who are supposed to be responsible scientists and doctors are making up wacky reasons."
"Wacky" really doesn't even begin to cover it. Really, these people are fucking preevs. If it's not "purity balls" for pre-pubescents and fainting couch fantasies about the insidious gay agenda or its inevitable offspring, man-on-dog-on-box-turtle sex, it's -- what, exactly? Our kids filling a jelly-bean jar with Plan B, lighting some incense and holding mass-orgies on Ouija boards to the new Slayer album?
This woman is in charge of much of a scientific federal agency. I don't know if she got her doctorate in advanced wingnuttery and fundamentalist ass-licking from Bob Jones University or what, but it sure as shit ain't in medicine, right? Look, if I sat around all day thinking about teen sex and beastiality, my wife would have me committed. What are these people doing running around without their straitjackets on, much less running federal medical policy?
Now I'm certain Linc Chafee and all those other loveable Republican moderates will give Crawford the third degree about this. But just in case, I'm cutting off Chafee's friends at NARAL and switching some of my pro-choice donation to this group. After that, I'm gonna write my senators and let them know that I support mandatory psychiatric treatment for all Bush appointees. These people, as they say back home, they need a lotta help.