Posts Tagged 'Plan B'

Teva Pharmaceuticals Granted Exclusive Rights by FDA to Retail One-Step Plan B

According to a report from The Boston Globe, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Teva Pharmaceuticals the exclusive right to place its emergency contraception, One-Step Plan B, on the shelves of drugstores without any age restrictions. Exclusivity was granted for the next three years.

This was made possible when US District Judge Edward Korman of New York ordered in April, 2013 that all levonorgestrel-based emergency contraceptives be available over the counter without a prescription. Judge Korman’s ...

continue reading...

Pharmacies deny emergency contraception to teens

Time Magazine’s blog reports a study that found about one in five pharmacies incorrectly denying teenage girls emergency contraception.

By law, teenagers 17 and older can buy the pills over the counter. The emergency contraceptives are also known Plan B or the “morning-after pill,” because they are most effective immediately following potential conception.

Researchers from Boston University, posing as either 17-year-old girls or doctors seeking Plan B emergency contraception for their 17-year-old patients, called 943 drugstores.

They found that 19% of pharmacists told ...

continue reading...

Birth control advocates call for over-the-counter pills

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration held a two-day hearing this week to discuss whether to expand the list of drugs that consumers can buy without a prescription, according to a Bloomberg report.

While the agency’s discussions center on cholesterol, asthma, migraine and blood-pressure medications, birth control advocates are using the debate to raise the question of whether contraceptives should be available over the counter.

Daniel Grossman, a senior associate with research and advocacy group Ibis Reproductive Health, said such an arrangement ...

continue reading...