Dear Colleague:
 
The efforts to pressure the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into
approving the morning-after pill (MAP) for over-the-counter (OTC)
distribution are inextricably linked to the international abortion
industry.
 
The founder of Women's Capital Corporation, the applicant for FDA approval
of OTC/MAP, organized the first efforts to promote MAPs globally.
 
Directly involved is the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), whose pro-MAP agenda overseas appears to now be
coming home to roost.
 
Steven Mosher
President
 
ACTION ITEM: To urge the FDA to not approve OTC/MAP status, go to:
http://www.fda.gov/dockets/ecomments. Select "2001P-0075 - Switch Status
of Emergency Contraceptives from Rx to OTC" and follow the prompts to
submit your statement.
 
Written comments should be submitted to:
Dockets Management Branch
HFA-305, Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
Rockville, MD 20852.
 

PRI Weekly Briefing
2 April 2004
Vol. 6 / No. 13
 
Morning-After Pills: Domestic and International Links
 
U.S. taxpayers should not be surprised that the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) has been actively involved in promoting
and distributing morning-after pills (MAP) to poor, often traumatized,
women and girls in developing nations, long before the abortion-inducing
chemical ever became famous in America. Norplant, a chemical with the same
active ingredient as MAP, has been discontinued in the U.S., but USAID
continues to flood developing nations with tens of thousands of units of
it.
 
Long before the FDA approved MAP by prescription only, USAID was routinely
funding events designed to expand global access to MAP, and groups which
actively import the dangerous drug.(1)
 
In Uganda, for example, USAID initiated a "new Commercial Market
Strategies project (CMS)" to introduce MAPs into the general population.
With the help of Population Services International (PSI), and Pathfinder
International, social marketing campaigns were launched. PSI led focus
groups among African women to increase MAP use.(2)
 
Ignoring serious risks, USAID distributed a Fact Sheet to all of its
overseas missions declaring that morning-after pills are safe and
effective, do not cause abortion, and "constitute an integral part of the
voluntary service delivery mix that USAID supports."(3)
 
With an air of imperialistic immunity, USAID promotion of MAPs persisted
despite it being illegal to do so according to the sovereign laws of
foreign nations. In Peru, for example, a USAID official lobbied for the
legalization of MAP, despite Peru's pro-life laws which prohibit MAP.(4)
USAID's support of MAP use in Peru continued. USAID-funded groups actively
took part in efforts to "overthrow" Peru's pro-life Health Minister, Dr.
Fernando Carbone, because of his efforts to oppose MAPs. USAID support of
MAPs has been widespread throughout Latin America. USAID-funded Family
Health International, despite El Salvadorian law which defines life as
beginning at fertilization, launched massive efforts to promote MAP to
girls as young as 10 years of age.(5)
 
USAID's pro-MAP ideology comes directly from the U.N and the World Health
Organization (WHO), and not the FDA. In fact, USAID claims to be able to
distribute abortion-inducing chemicals and contraceptives overseas, even
when they are not FDA approved, by following WHO policies.
 
The Political Origins of MAP
 
On the heels of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and
Development in Cairo, the pro-abortion international community convened in
1995 in Bellagio Italy to discuss and promote MAPs under the auspices of
women's health and rights. At Bellagio, pro-aborts sought ways to
incorporate MAPs into international population control programs. At
Bellagio, Dr. Sharon Camp-the founder of FDA applicant for OTC/MAP,
Women's Capital Corporation-was "volunteer coordinator" for ongoing
working groups charged with global MAP promotion. Each region of the world
was designated with its own working group, to promote MAPs. Regions
collaborated by sharing challenges and success stories via the
international consortium.(6)
 
A consensus statement was drafted, calling for increasing worldwide
awareness of and demand for MAPs, and increasing worldwide access to MAPs
among women and teens. Directives to target adolescent populations were
specifically given.(7) Less than a year later, an International Consortium
at which USAID participated succeeded in securing the manufacture of MAP
for social marketing worldwide.
 
In 1996, USAID began to promote MAPs full-force, through its favored
non-governmental organization Family Health International (FHI), which
published a plan of action for changing attitudes of women and teens
towards MAPs. Studies targeted adolescents, in order to promote MAPs as a
solution to rape.(8)
 
A year later, in 1997, armed largely with data secured through
international field studies undertaken outside the view of U.S. public
scrutiny, the American Society for Emergency Contraception (ASEC) began
efforts to promote MAPs for domestic use under the same guise as a
solution to rape.(9)
 
The same year, in collaboration with five Planned Parenthood affiliates,
Dr. Sharon Camp-who was key at the Bellagio conference in efforts to
promote MAPs to teens globally-founded Women's Capital Corporation (WCC),
a privately-held for-profit corporation whose shareholders are mainly
private foundations. WCC's corporate mission is to purchase existing or
orphaned contraceptive technology avoided by mainstream pharmaceuticals
due to fears of bad publicity.(10)
 
Through WCC, the ideologies of special-interest groups were masked and
MAP-related issues were framed as science, medicine and women's health
issues.
 
The same year, FDA declared MAPs to be safe and effective, without an
application from the drug's manufacturer. This move was regarded as highly
unusual, even by some in the international abortion-camp, because the FDA
rarely sanctions a drug's use for new medical indications without an
application from the drug's manufacturer.(11)
 
In 1999, FDA approved Plan B for prescription.(12)
 
In 2002, during a new Bush Administration, the FDA issued a Warning Letter
to FDA applicant for Women's Capital Corporation concerning its unproven
advertising and marketing claims designed to generate public support for
and use of MAP.(13)
 
One year later, Women's Capital Corporation filed for OTC status with FDA
for Plan B.(14)
 
Very recently, WCC Founder Dr. Sharon Camp became Chief Executive Officer
of Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), after negotiating sale of Women's
Capital Corporation to Barr Laboratories for $24 million.(15)
 
AGI promotes abortion globally. FDA's current consideration of the OTC/MAP
application represents the final step in a worldwide campaign launched by
international abortion advocacy/population control organizations a decade
ago.
 
Dr. Camp, and the pro-abortion industry of which she is part, has millions
more to gain.
 
USAID's heavy-handed tactics around the world are being mimicked by the
FDA here at home.  The unwanted abortion-inducing chemicals previously
foisted upon developing nations have undergone an image-makeover for U.S.
consumption.  It is time to end the FDA's charade that it is acting in the
interests of women and girls. The FDA must refuse to promote the
ideological special interests of abortion advocacy and international
population control organizations.
 
American women have everything to lose.  Let the FDA know you oppose this
proposal to make MAP available OTC.  See FDA contact information above.
 

Endnotes

1. "Expanding Global Access to Emergency Contraception: A Collaborative
Approach to Meeting Women's Needs;" www.cecinfo.org/files/ see: link
titled Expaning-Global-Access-to EC.rtf.
2. The Emergency Contraceptive Newsletter, Spring 1999, Vol. 4, No. 1.
3. Emergency Contraception Update Highlights: October, 1996 to October
1997; "USAID Promotes 'Vital Choice for Women'."
4. May 17, 2002 letter to Peruvian Minister of Health Fernando Carbone,
from 21 pro-abortion activists, including signature of Maria Angelica
Borneck of USAID/Peru.
5. USAID El Salvador, "Family Planning Guidelines," July 1999.
6. Available at:  http://www.cecinfo.org/html/ab-unique-approach.htm. The
original seven international abortion advocacy/population control groups
were:  The Concept Foundation; International Planned Parenthood
Federation; Pacific Institute for Women's Health; Pathfinder
International; PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health);
Population Council; World Health Organization's Special Programme of
Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction.
Membership was later expanded but remains comprised predominantly of
abortion advocacy and population control groups.
7. "Consensus Statement on Emergency Contraception," Contraception, 1996;
52:211-212. The Consensus Statement (in an incomplete version) is
available at www.path.org/outlook/html/13_3.htm.
8. "OCs Provide Emergency Contraception Option," Family Health
International, Network, Summer 1996, Vol. 16 No. 4.  Available at:
www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6issues/6network/v16-4/nt1645.html.
9. American Society for Emergency Contraception. Available at
http://www.emergencycontraception.org/asec/
10. "Daily Reproductive Health Report:  Contraception and Family Planning,
Barr Laboratories Acquires Emergency Contraceptive Plan B," Kaiser Daily
Network Reports. October 6, 2003.  Available at
www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_id=20191.
11. International Consortium for Emergency Contraception, "Emergency
Contraception Highlights Update:  10/96 to 10/97."  Available at:
www.cecinfo.org/files/ecupdateHilights-96-97.rtf. ICEC stated," "On
February 25, 1997, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration pronounced six
U.S. brands of combined oral contraceptives safe and effective for use as
emergency contraceptives and urged the pharmaceutical industry to apply
for approval of new dedicated products."
12. Transcript, Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee in Joint Session
with the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs Meeting, Food &
Drug Administration, December 16, 2003, P. 21.   Available at:
www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/03/transcripts/4015T1.pdf.
13. Copy of Warning Letter available at:
http://www.pharmcast.com/WarningLetters/Yr2002/November2002/WomensCapital120302.htm.

14. Women's Capital Corporation.  Available at:
http://www.go2planb.com/section/newsroom/in_the_news/.
15. Press Release, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. Available at:
www.guttmacher.org/pipermail/agi/2003-July/000080.html
 
 
© 2004 Population Research Institute. Permission to reprint or use in any
form granted. Credit requested.
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