Thursday, July 7, 2022

Plan B is under attack

New labeling could ease tensions.

Good morning, it's Riley in New York. For decades, anti-abortion groups have conflated the so-called morning-after pill with the abortion pill. I'm here to tell you why the misinformation campaign has put emergency contraceptives at risk. But before we get to that...

Today's must reads

What the fall of Roe means for Plan B 

Almost all women will use some form of birth control in their lifetime. Even so, emergency contraception like the Plan B One-Step pill has long been vilified by the anti-abortion movement. And it's likely to face renewed attacks in the wake of the Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade.

The problem is that anti-abortion groups often misrepresent Plan B as abortion medication. It's not: Plan B prevents pregnancy within 72 hours after unprotected sex or failure of another birth control method by temporarily delaying ovulation — the release of an egg from an ovary. It won't affect an existing pregnancy or the ability to get pregnant later on.

Plan B One-Step Photographer: Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images/Getty Images

That hasn't stopped some lawmakers, like Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, from spreading misinformation about the drug.

Some of the issues trace back to outdated language in Plan B's labeling, which says the drug may prevent "attachment of a fertilized egg to the uterus," a process known as implantation. Research suggests that's not the case, and the International Federation of Gynecology & Obstetrics and other medical groups have advocated for the US Food and Drug Administration to remove that language, as regulators did in Europe years ago.

"The history of Plan B is kind of a black eye in the face of the FDA," says Christopher ChoGlueck, an assistant professor of ethics at New Mexico Tech whose research focuses on how antiabortion advisers to the agency influenced the drug's label in the early 2000s. "It's a really nefarious case of providers and advisers imposing their values on evidence."

Confusion around how Plan B works has already impacted access. Before the reversal of Roe, nine states had adopted restrictions on emergency contraception, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And though all forms of birth control remain legal after the Supreme Court decision, some providers worry that offering emergency contraception could put them at risk.

In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the Saint Luke's Health System stopped providing emergency contraception late last month following a statewide ban on abortion. Within 24 hours, Saint Luke's reversed its decision after the Missouri attorney general said that law didn't prohibit the use of Plan B.

Fears about restricted access to Plan B have also contributed to a spike in demand for the product at CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart, Amazon and on telehealth platforms like Nurx, Wisp and Alpha Medical. 

The campaign to revise the label is picking up steam. But it's up to the two private-equity firms that own Plan B through their company, Foundation Consumer Healthcare, to work with US regulators to make changes. (The FDA and Foundation didn't respond to requests for comment.)

Until that happens, Plan B will remain under threat, according to Mara Gandal-Powers, director of birth control access and senior counsel for reproductive rights and health at the National Women's Law Center.

"We've started to see over the last couple of years an increase in people more explicitly targeting Plan B," she says. "This is just the beginning."

Riley Griffin

A new season of Prognosis is coming!

For much of human history, we've turned to diets to lose weight and improve our health. But it's mostly been in vain. Because no matter how much the number on the scale drops, chances are the weight will come back.

"Losing It," a new series from Bloomberg's Prognosis, investigates how we got weight loss so wrong — and whether there's a better way forward. "Losing It" launches on July 12. Check out the show trailer here! And subscribe to Prognosis today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

What we're reading

1Life Healthcare, the parent of One Medical clinics, is considering options after attracting takeover interest, including from CVS Health, reports Bloomberg's Michelle Davis.

Laura Collins of the New Yorker goes to Paris to visit Etienne-Emile Baulieu, a French doctor known as the father of the abortion pill.

Rolling back Roe v. Wade could enable a movement to use state laws on child endangerment, feticide or murder to arrest women whose pregnancies end prematurely, reports Bloomberg's Patricia Hurtado and Francesca Maglione.

Ask Prognosis

Ask us anything — well, anything health-related that is! Each week we're picking a reader question and putting it to our network of experts. So get in touch via AskPrognosis@bloomberg.net.

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