{"id":6959,"date":"2004-06-24T12:30:01","date_gmt":"2004-06-24T17:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2004\/06\/24\/morning-after-pill-blocked-by-politics\/"},"modified":"2004-06-24T12:30:01","modified_gmt":"2004-06-24T17:30:01","slug":"morning-after-pill-blocked-by-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2004\/06\/morning-after-pill-blocked-by-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning-after pill blocked by politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"post\">From the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/opinion\/content\/opinion\/bookman\/2004\/062404.html\">Atlantic<br \/>\nJournal-Constitution<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">Some government decisions are legitimately political; others are not. For<br \/>\nexample, politics should never play a role in the decision to approve or<br \/>\ndisapprove drugs for human consumption. By law, such decisions are supposed<br \/>\nto be made solely on the basis of medical evidence that determines first<br \/>\nwhether the drugs are safe, and second whether they are effective.<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">That&#8217;s no longer the case. The integrity of the nation&#8217;s drug-approval process<br \/>\nhas been compromised by the Bush administration for crass political purposes,<br \/>\nanother in a long line of cases in which it has ignored or distorted scientific<br \/>\nevidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">Oh now this reporter finds interference in the FDA to be political.<br \/>\nDuring the Clinton administration RU-486 was given fast-track approval. By<br \/>\nthe law<br \/>\nfast-track approval was to be used only for development of drugs to save lives,<br \/>\nlike with cancer treatment medications.  The only reason<br \/>\nit was given fast-track was to get the abortion pill  approved prior<br \/>\nto President Clinton leaving office (another legacy).<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">We have long disapproved drugs for political reasons. Recreational<br \/>\ndrug use has longed been banned under law. Regardless of how safe and effective<br \/>\nsome hallucinogens, depressants, and amphetamines might be; a moral view<br \/>\non their use came into play. An FDA that would approve any drug based on zero<br \/>\nmoral concerns is not a government agency that protects the people. A suicide<br \/>\npill could rapidly be developed that was effective and safety wouldn&#8217;t even<br \/>\ncome into the picture (long term effect studies would not be necessary). If<br \/>\na pill was developed that made people stronger and more violent and it effectively<br \/>\ndid this and had no side-effect on the body would this reporter see this as<br \/>\nsomething that should be approved with zero political questions?<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">It is within the scope of government to not just look at the<br \/>\nscience of something but at the moral consequence of it. Cloning, embryonic<br \/>\nstem-cell research, and other technologies all fall into areas that legitimately<br \/>\nshould come under government oversight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Atlantic Journal-Constitution. Some government decisions are legitimately political; others are not. For example, politics should never play a role in the decision to approve or disapprove drugs for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}