The Government Accountability Office has issued a report saying that the FDA acted unusually in its decision to reject over-the-counter status for the emergency contraceptive Plan B. According to an article in the Washington Post, the report claims that

Senior Food and Drug Administration officials were told that the application to sell the “morning-after pill” without prescription was going to be rejected before the staff completed its scientific review and months before the decision was made public.

Background: The FDA’s scientific advisory committee recommended that Plan B be approved for over-the-counter use; in an almost unprecedented move, the FDA refused to follow its own advisory panel’s advice (out of 23 similar recommendations over the past ten years, only Plan B was rejected).

Senators Patty Murray and Hillary Rodham Clinton are saying, “This long-awaited report leaves no question that science was compromised in the FDA’s decision making process on Plan B. The GAO has confirmed what we have always suspected, that this was a politically motivated decision that came down from the highest levels at the F.D.A.” Full statement here.

The Bush administration has exactly the respect for women that it has for science: none.