Plan B
Recently the abortifacient Plan B has been approved for sale over the counter by the FDA. As a Christian I have moral and spiritual objections to this decision, but putting those aside for this blog as a pharmacist and health professional I find this move by the FDA to be on wrought with error. The biggest health concern I see with this medication be placed over the counter for anyone over 18 to purchase any time and as often as they please is that there is absolutely no regulation on how often or how much of this medication will be taken. We restrict Sudafed sells but not Plan B. In a society where one is good then two must be better I find this very concerning. We have all recently see the problems with people over dosing on Tylenol (a very safe drug) what would make us think differently for Plan B. Has the FDA considered that in there decision to place Plan B over the counter. I really don't know so if any one does please inform me. Any education on this subject would be appreciated. Another thought as well is if Plan B is so safe that it can be sold OTC (over the counter) then why do we make women get a prescription for birth control. All Plan B contains is a high dose of birth control medication. But my biggest objection to Plan B over the counter is that we all know very well that people do not used condoms to protect from STIs. We can all pretend that we are enlightened and educated enough that people use condoms to protect form HPV, HIV and other STIs but the fact of the matter is that most people not all but most people are concerned with pregnancy. Pregnancy drives people to use protection far better than fear of a disease. You can see pregnancy, it is more real to people. It has more of a lasting inconvenience (sad) to them. I can only predict that the already astronomically high rate of STIs will rise and rise substantially from Plan B being sold OTC. Has the FDA put any thought into that. Is making the elimination of unplanned pregnancy that important as to ignore the social health issues at hand. I think not.
posted by nic @ 11/09/2006 10:57:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I've been thinking about plan B and reading about it, and it appears to prevent fertilization not prevent an embryo from implanting- therefore, I see it as last minute contraception, not abortion. My 2 cents from your friendly reproductive physiologist.
i was under the impression that the use of high dose progestins helped to make the uterus less hospitable to implantation but upon further review of my pharmacy books it does both. Thanks for the knowledge reproductive master lol. I still believe the health issues are a subject worth discussion. How is the baby!! he is a cutie
Yeah, the first thing it would do if the woman was about to ovulate is it would totally block ovulation. If she had already ovulated then it would interfere with the sperm being able to fertilize the egg. Progesterone is the embryo's friend- I don't see how it would interfere with anything once there was an embryo around. A women's own body starts producing large amounts of progesterone once an embryo was around. I read the same on the FDA website about it- that it would interfere with implantation, but I would have to disagree with the silly MD's who wrote the page.
Yes, I agree- baby is totally a cutie- but I'm biased on that!
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