By host Tom Ashbrook:

Now it’s official: the FDA decision to keep “Plan B,” the so-called “morning after pill,” out of over-the-counter sales, was a doozy in the vein of politics trumping science.

A General Accounting Office (GAO) report, out this week, finds that the Bush’s Food and Drug Administration appointees ditched normal procedure and agency practice, sidelined science, and made it clear — months before a formal review was complete — that Plan B was going nowhere near the counter.

Conservative religious critics called Plan B a sneak abortion and a passport to promiscuity. And science, say the scientists, got rolled.

Hear a conversation with Susan Wood, the FDA women’s health chief who bailed in anger, about science and the “morning after” saga.

Guests:

Susan Wood, Former Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health and Director of the Office of Women’s Health at the FDA

Chris Mooney, Washington Correspondent for Seed Magazine and author of The Republican War on Science

Marc Kaufman, National Health Reporter for The Washington Post.

She resigned in protest of the FDA’s decision to delay over the counter status to Plan B contraception
Previously a research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine