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There are about 3 million unintended pregnancies each year in the United States. Just over half of these happen to women who are using regular methods of contraception. Despite the many highly effective birth control options women have to choose from, none is 100% perfect. And sometimes, mistakes happen — a condom breaks, a diaphragm slips, or a woman misses a pill. Or she has sex when she didn’t plan to or want to.
Emergency contraception (EC) is a safe, effective back-up birth control method that can prevent pregnancy after unprotected intercourse or contraceptive failure. When taken within days of unprotected intercourse, EC can reduce the risk of pregnancy by up to 89%. Despite the widely acknowledged safety, efficacy, and acceptability of EC, usage rates in the United States are low. A lack of information contributes to a lack of use. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation survey, nearly one in three women aged 18 to 44 said they did not know of a way to prevent pregnancy after sex. Additionally, less than one third of gynecologists report writing prescriptions for EC on a regular basis. Consequently, only 6% of women have ever used EC.
Since 1992, RHTP has been at the forefront of efforts to bring EC into the mainstream, from launching the first-ever EC advertising campaign to mobilizing support for the application to make an EC product available over-the-counter. RHTP also launched the Back Up Your Birth Control campaign, a nationwide grassroots activist campaign to improve EC access and awareness.
In November 2005,
the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released the long-awaited report on the Food and Drug Administration’s 2004 decision to deny the original Plan B over-the-counter application. The GAO report deemed the FDA’s decision process “unusual” and “not typical” of previous decisions on over-the-counter drugs, with evidence of uncharacteristic high-level management involvement in the decision making.
On August 24, 2006, in a major victory for women and women's health advocates, the FDA approved over-the-counter
access to Plan B emergency contraception for women 18 years and older.
After this initial FDA OTC approval, RHTP continued to work to ensure that women of all ages have access to EC. On March 23, 2009, RHTP partner the Center for Reproductive Rights won a major victory for women's health when the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that the FDA politicized its decision in making Emergency Contraception available over the counter by acting "arbitrarily" and "capriciously" in restricting the drug to women 18 and over. The judge ordered that the FDA not only reconsider and re-review its decision to impose age restrictions on access to EC, but immediately remove the existing age restriction for women 17 and over.
During the summer of 2009, two new emergency contraceptive products were approved by the FDA: Next Choice™ and Plan B® One-Step. Plan B One-Step is a single pill emergency contraceptive available over-the-counter (OTC) to consumers 17 and older and by prescription only for women 16 and younger. At the same time Plan B One-Step was approved, the original Plan B®‘s OTC labeling restrictions were changed to mirror that of Plan B One-Step. Next Choice, a generic version of Plan B, was initially approved in June for prescription-only usage by women 17 and younger. However, after Teva’s over-the-counter Plan B market exclusivity expired on August 24th, an over-the-counter version of Next Choice was approved on August 28th.
If you need emergency contraception, please visit the Emergency Contraception website for a directory of providers.
More Information on Plan B:
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