As the imposed deadline of September 1st passed without resolution to the "unique problem" of approval of the emergency contraception medication, Plan B, a top official in the FDA has resigned in protest over what she deemed inappropriate political meddling in what should be a scientific and medical decision.
Susan F. Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health, said she was leaving her position after five years because Commissioner Lester M. Crawford's announcement Friday amounted to unwarranted interference in agency decision-making.
"I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled," she wrote in an e-mail to her staff and FDA colleagues.
Crawford said last week that unresolved regulatory issues made it impossible to approve expanded use of the emergency contraceptive. Wood said the decision was widely seen in the FDA as political.
"Many colleagues have made it known that they are deeply concerned about the direction of the agency," she said in an interview.
Wood also said other FDA officials who are typically involved in important matters were kept in the dark about the contraceptive, called Plan B, until Crawford announced his decision, which she believed was made at higher levels in the administration. Wood said that when she asked a colleague in the commissioner's office when the decision would be made, the answer was, "We're still awaiting a decision from above; it hasn't come down yet."
Obviously she isn't familiar with the change in scientific methodology heralded by the president's inauguration. Traditional enlightenment methodology (or "Old Europe" science) dictates that data should be evaluated in order to test a hypothesis, and conclusions should be based on a careful study of that data. GOP scientific methodology, on the other hand, puts the conclusions first and then seeks to find data that supports those conclusions. If no data can be found that substantiates the claims, then it is declared that "the jury is still out" until that data can be found or properly manufactured.
Fortunately right wing special interest groups with the ear of the White House have become highly versatile in the new scientific method, as evidenced by their statement on the current controversy.
Wendy Wright, policy director for Concerned Women for America and a critic of easier access to Plan B, welcomed Wood's resignation.
"Thank goodness there is now one less political activist at the FDA who puts radical feminist ideology above women's health," she wrote in a statement. "Now that Susan Wood has some free time on her hands, she can look at the studies from countries that have made the morning-after pill available without a prescription. She'll find it creates a public health hazard, with no decrease in pregnancies, no decrease in abortion, but a substantial increase in sexually transmitted diseases."
So a "radical feminist ideology" consists of carefully analyzing available scientific and medical data and drawing a conclusion that a particular medication is safe? Maybe Wendy Wright missed this paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed no increase in the amount of unprotected sex or STD infection rate in women to whom emergency contraception was made available. Ah, but that study was conducted in the US, and the criticism was that in other countries studies have shown the carnage that results. Maybe it's just that she missed this paper in the New England Journal of Medicine which showed that in Scotland, in fact, the number of women who stopped using condoms after having Plan B available dropped the same amount as women who did not have the medication available.
It's time these reactionary groups stopped trying to cloak their agendas with "women's health concerns" and false claims of scientific evidence and started to come right out and say they're opposed to this drug entirely as a result of their interpretations of religion. That Plan B is more effective at preventing fertilization at all rather than blocking implantation of an already fertilized embryo apparently does not matter - life no longer begins at conception for these people, it apparently begins at penetration. Their tireless attempts to block approval of Plan B are just another way to exert control over people's private lives and roll back the gains made by the feminist movement.
The situation is bleak. It's getting to the point where years of peer reviewed data are treated as if it were mere opinion, no more valid than any other opinion.
The same perception is creeping into the intelligent design debates. Even congressmen with no training are trying to decide which grants should be funded. It's a really scary time to be starting a career in science.
Rickets said:
The situation is bleak. It's getting to the point where years of peer reviewed data are treated as if it were mere opinion, no more valid than any other opinion.
The same perception is creeping into the intelligent design debates.
It's exactly the same, and for exactly the same reason.
Whole thing's nauseatingly depressing. It makes me wish fnords were real, so I could ascribe my fear and dislike to subliminal messages rather than what's really going on.
legionnaire
Belgium
November 2003
SEP 01, 2005 12:21 PM