American women led the global fight for equal rights and access to birth control, but when it comes to emergency contraception -- a potent antidote to unplanned, unprotected sex -- they are lagging way behind.
That will change if the US government's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decides to do what at least 26 other countries have done and declare Plan B, a morning-after pill, an over-the- counter medication.
Women's Capital Corp, a small firm created specifically to produce the medication in the late 1990s, submitted its application last month asking for approval for pharmacists to dispense the emergency contraception nationwide without a doctor's prescription, a company spokesman said.
The medication, despite its limited availability in the US, has already reduced the number of annual abortions by 51,000 by preventing pregnancy within hours after unprotected sex, the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimated.
Plan B and a second emergency contraceptive are currently available in four US states from pharmacists, meaning women in the other 46 states must make appointments with their physicians to get a prescription for the pills.
Since unprotected sex most likely occurs in the evenings and weekends when doctors are not in the office, women outside the four states often miss the crucial 24- to 72-hour period necessary for the pills to be effective.
Over the counter
"We are asking for over-the-counter status of the product," said a company spokesman. "This would enable women to go directly to their pharmacists and get the product without a doctor's prescription."
The morning-after pill was already available over the counter in 26 countries by 2000, which were: Albania, Israel, Senegal, Belgium, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Benin, Lithuania, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Madagascar, Sweden, Denmark, Mauritius, Switzerland, Finland, Namibia, Togo, France, Norway, Tunisia, Gabon, Portugal, Britain, Guinea and Republic of Congo.
Despite its limited availability in the US, where it was first introduced in 1997, the number of American women using Plan B has doubled every year, the company said. Currently, 6 per cent of American women have used one or the other morning-after pill, triple the percentage from three years ago, the Kaiser Family Foundation confirmed recently.
The morning-after pill involves administration of two concentrated birth control pills -- preferably within 24 hours, but up to 72 hours after unprotected intercourse -- and is 75 percent effective, said the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York.
The Plan B pill consists of 0.75 milligrams of levonorgestrel, a progesterin product in two doses. The two pills are about the equivalent of 40 daily birth control pills, a company spokesman said. Before the morning-after pill came on the market, in fact, some physicians would direct pharmacists to cut up packets of the monthly pills for patients in need, including rape victims, to use in a similar way.
The name, Plan B, implies what it means -- that morning-after pills should not be used for regular contraception. Plan A, the ideal plan, entails anything that involves thinking ahead -- such as the daily preventive pill, condoms or other birth-control methods.
Noting the worldwide success of emergency contraception, however, the FDA in 1997 took the unusual initiative of getting the drug manufactured in the US by declaring it safe and seeking a company to produce the pills.
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