Plan B: Ignore Science, Destroy Evidence
The saga of malfeasance at the Food and Drug Administration over the emergency contraceptive Plan B just keeps getting worse, as detailed in today's New York Times. (Find earlier episodes here.)
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigatory arm of Congress, has released its report on how FDA has handled Barr Pharmaceuticals' application to sell Plan B over the counter.
The findings are damning. Among them:
- Well before FDA scientists had evaluated Plan B, according to GAO, four senior FDA officials were told by their superiors that Plan B would be rejected.
- Top FDA officials intervened in agency decisionmaking, overriding the recommendations of expert review panels and agency scientists, in ways that were "very, very rare."
- The rationale given for overruling those scientists was "unprecedented."
- All of former agency administrator Dr. Mark B. McClellan's emails and other correspondence about Plan B were destroyed, in apparent violation of federal rules.
GAO is notoriously careful in its wording. So it wouldn't be unreasonable at this point to read into these carefully modulated terms official confirmation of our worst suspicions: the Bush Administration's appointees at the FDA ignored the science and ran roughshod over one the most respected and impartial federal agencies to placate its political base. Then it launched a cover up.
Are we getting close to the territory reserved for special prosecutors?
I make these strong charges without partisan rancor. The intensity of my indignation is fired by the knowledge that ready access to emergency contraception reduces both the abortion rate and the teen birth rate. Every month that passes without over-the-counter emergency contraception means more unwanted pregnancies. Unwanted pregnancies lead overwhelmingly to abortions, which--no matter how strongly you support the right to choose--are no one's idea of a public good. To a lesser degree, they lead to births--births of babies who tend to be poorly cared for and at great risk for all manner of ills. And these unwanted pregnancies all could have been prevented with emergency contraception.
As if that tragic waste weren't enough, there is the horrifying prospect of a thoroughly politicized FDA. Let your imagination extend this precedent from emergency contraception to all manner of other pharmaceuticals and, I suspect, you'll share my deep concern.
All Eyes Turn To . . . Yakima
In February of this year, in Cascadia Scorecard 2005, we argued for an innovation in state utility rules called "decoupling." The idea has since made impressive strides; and the next great advance may come in, of all places, Yakima, Washington. (More on that in a moment.)
In a nutshell, decoupling is a way to allow electric and gas utilities to prosper by helping their customers to save money. Utilities are not like other companies. Their profits are dictated by state utility regulators, based on complicated formulas. Since profits rise with sales, investments in improving efficiency can drain away profits. By decoupling sales from earnings, however, utility regulators can write Cascadia's long-term energy efficiency into utilities' bottom lines and turn utilities--precisely the organizations that have the requisite know-how and capital-- into vanguards of clean energy.
It's Official: Orcas Are Endangered
This just in: the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) just announced that it will list as endangered the southern resident orcas--the whales most commonly seen in Puget Sound. The NMFS decision came as something of a surprise because the agency had first declined to protect the orcas under the law. Then, following a court order to reconsider that decision, they proposed listing the whales as "threatened," a weaker standard under the law.
Today's listing--which affirms that the orcas are indeed at risk of extinction--is nothing short of a huge victory for conservationists. Though orca populations have been on the rebound lately, there is still much cause for concern because of the daunting array of threats that they face, everything from anemic salmon runs to marine vessel traffic to toxic contamination.
The effects of the listing remain to be seen, but orca restoration will finally get the attention that it deserves. No doubt preserving the southern resident orcas will require changes to the way that we northwesterners act on our native ecology. But I suspect those changes will be good not only for the orcas--they'll be good for us too. Or as my favorite author once wrote:
Restoring [Puget] Sound is good for whales, but it is also quite clearly good for those other inhabitants of the Puget Sound region -- people. As the top predators of a diverse food web, the orcas embody the fate of the entire Sound. Their growing numbers are a promising sign that we can successfully improve ecological conditions, not only for the orcas but for us too. Cleansing the Sound of toxics and bringing back its abundance of salmon will take work but there is plenty of evidence that we can do it.
Read the NMFS press release (pdf). Media coverage here and here.
Sloth: Perhaps not a sin, but still deadly
Today's Seattle Times summarizes the findings of a long-term study of how exercise improves health:
People who engaged in moderate activity -- the equivalent of walking for 30 minutes a day for five days a week -- lived about 1.3 to 1.5 years longer than those who were less active. Those who took on more intense exercise -- the equivalent of running half an hour a day for five days every week -- extended their lives by about 3.5 to 3.7 years, the researchers found.
In other words, sloth kills, and even moderate exercise can lead to a longer, healthier life. Which is something to keep in mind next time you're in the market for a place to live -- choosing a home where it's as convenient to walk to the store as to drive could actually save your life.
