“If Bush waged a war on science, then yesterday the war crime tribunal spoke. The U.S. District court of the Eastern District of New York ruled that the Bush administration had politicized a once respected regulatory agency, the FDA, for bending the law to its right wing purposes. The court's condemnation was comprehensive and brutal, all but labeling the Bushies political criminals.”

So reports Cristina Page, author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, on the Huffington Post this morning. And what a great report it is!

As she says, “At issue was the FDA's decision to overrule its staff recommendation and restrict access for adolescents to one of the most effective methods of preventing unwanted pregnancy, emergency contraception. The Court, in one excoriating stroke, reversed the first (and let's hope last) ideological decision the FDA ever made. The decision could not have been more dismissive of the Bush administration's maneuverings. Mincing no words, the Court concluded that the FDA acted in bad faith and in response to political pressure, departed in significant ways from the agency's normal procedures, and engaged in repeated and unreasonable delays.

"The court also found that the FDA's justification for denying over-the-counter access to minors 'lacks all credibility,' and was based on 'fanciful and wholly unsubstantiated 'enforcement' concerns.' The Court ordered the FDA to reconsider its decision based on scientific evidence alone.”

Read it all and rejoice in SCIENCE! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/the-morning-after-pill-co_b_178306.html

Positively,
Carolan