Tags
birth control, contraception, emergency contraception, family planning, FDA, food and drug administration, health, health care, medication interactions, medicine, OTC medication, over-the-counter, pharmacy, Plan B, politics
The Food and Drug Administration has approved Plan B One Step, a brand of emergency contraceptive, to be available for women 15 and older without a prescription.
This comes almost a month after a federal judge orderedthe FDA to make Plan B available to everyone over-the-counter, which will go into effect on May 5, unless the FDA appeals the ruling.
“The Department of Justice is considering next steps in the litigation,” the FDA said in a statement. “In the meantime, the FDA took independent action to approve the pending application on Plan B One-Step for use without a prescription by women 15 years of age or older.”
– ABC News
While I am glad that Plan B has been made available to women 15 years and older I also have a concern about it too. Plan B is available without a prescription over-the-counter (OTC) but regular birth control is not available OTC. This creates a situation where teens may find Plan B preferable to regular birth control due to ease of access. Not only is Plan B easier since you only have to go to the pharmacy as opposed to seeing a doctor before going to the pharmacy. But also teens would not need to engage their parents about birth control. Thus some teens may opt to use Plan B instead of regular birth control.
The problem is that Plan B is an emergency contraceptive and is not intended for regular use whereas regular birth control is intended for regular use. Though some teens may use Plan B as regular birth control despite the side effects due to the ease of access. I do not want teens abusing Plan B.
Since the issues lies with the fact that Plan B is available OTC without a prescription but regular birth control is not. So the obvious solution is to make regular birth control available OTC without a prescriptions. Unfortunately this is where things get complicated. Birth control has risks associated with it including cardiovascular events, side-effects and medication interactions. Patients should be aware of the risks involved with birth control before starting. If birth control is available OTC then many people will not both to read the information in the package and will be unaware of the risks. Whereas if it is prescribed by a doctor then the patient will be made aware of the risks by their doctor. In addition there is a potential of an interaction between the birth control and other medications. If birth control is available OTC then nobody is checking to ensure that there will be no drug interactions. But if birth control is obtained with a prescriptions then both the doctor and pharmacist are aware of the birth control and can check for drug interactions. For these reasons I am unsure if regular birth control should be available OTC.
I am not a doctor so I can’t say whether the benefits of making birth control OTC outweigh the risks. What I can say is that having Plan B available without a prescription but requiring a prescription for regular birth control can lead some to overuse Plan B due to ease of access. The FDA should reexamine whether or not there should be some forms of regular birth control that are safe enough to offer OTC.
Invisible Mikey said:
You raise a valid concern. I’m not a doctor, but I work in a clinic as a tech and have been a delegate of doctors and nurses for a decade. Patients ordinarily do not ask questions about the risks of what they are ordered to take any more than they do if they buy an OTC medication. That’s why doctors, and especially pharmacists, are taught to proactively instruct them about these risks. We always place an rx in the context of other medications, and allergies the patient may have, when taking histories, before prescribing.
Tracy Goodwin said:
I have seen the same thing as a first responder and when I worked in psych facilities. Many people have no clue about what they are taking let alone the risks associated with their medications. In fact it is not uncommon for somebody to not even know why they take a medication. It is unfortunate that many don’t care to know about their medication but it is a fact that must be taking into consideration when dealing with medications.