Monday April 24, 2006

First, a quick little reality check:

In Iraq, since March 19, 2003 …
2388 U.S. soldiers killed, plus 318 contractors and 206 allied (mostly British) troops
at least 17269 U.S. soldiers wounded, though the number may be over twice that
at least 34511 Iraqi civilians killed as a result of invasion, insurgency, or terrorism

“I hate Iraq. I wish we had never gone into the place.” — Winston Churchill, 1926
He should know, after all. He invented Iraq in the first place after World War I.

Now that that’s out of the way …

Plan B is the brand name of the emergency contraceptive (“morning-after”) pill that has been languishing in the FDA’s approval process for over-the-counter sales. This isn’t because Plan B isn’t safe — it’s because social conservatives don’t like it. Of course, this is the same crowd that wants more cancer in the world, so I can’t say I’m stunned. The FDA isn’t supposed to make value judgments on medicines; it’s just supposed to give a simple yea or nay based on safety considerations. Indeed, the long-expected (and weird) smoking gun has revealed itself. Read for yourself:

“Simon Heller, one of the attorneys [for the Center for Reproductive Rights], plans to quiz [FDA Deputy Commissioner Janet] Woodcock about a March 23, 2004, staff memo suggesting she was concerned that Plan B might lead to teenage promiscuity … [which read, in part,] ‘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.’”

Hm. “Sex-based cults,” eh? Yeah, because there’ve been a whole lot of those since the birth-control pill came out. Now I’ve got this mental image of teenagers dancing around a pyramid of Plan B pill bottles placed on an altar. Weird, man. Anyway, the CRR lawsuit against the FDA is proceeding nicely. With irrefutable evidence like this, it’s hard to see how the people Bush put in charge of pharmaceutical “safety” could maintain its crazy witchhunts against perceived immorality.

Time for “The Daily Show”!