Time to Stall a Bush Nominee

We don't generally approve of holding nominations hostage to other political objectives. But Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray surely have good cause to block a vote on the nomination of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach to become commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration until the agency makes a final decision on the morning-after pill. There is no excuse for the administration's endless obfuscation and delays on making the pill available without a prescription when the overwhelming bulk of expert opinion says it is safe to do so. The pill must be taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse, preferably within 24 hours, leaving little time to visit a doctor to get a prescription.

The two senators, both Democrats, have good reason to feel betrayed. When they threatened last year to hold up the confirmation of a previous commissioner until a decision on the pill was made, they ultimately relented because of a written assurance from Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, who said the F.D.A. would act on the issue by Sept. 1. Sadly, Mr. Leavitt was misinformed by the agency, overruled by the White House or deliberately deceptive with the senators. The only action the agency took in September was to defer a decision indefinitely.

The case for approving the use of the pill without a prescription has become even stronger in recent months. Evidence has emerged that high officials at the agency overruled their professional staff and ignored expert advisory committees when they rejected the application. Moreover, the agency's claim that it needed more time to consider "novel" issues raised by a proposal to require prescriptions for young teenagers was belied by internal documents revealing that the issues had been discussed for some time but not analyzed aggressively. The logical inference is that the result was dictated by politics — by a desire to placate religious and social conservatives who consider the pill an invitation to promiscuity and an abortifacient.

Should this nomination ultimately go forward, senators will still need to assess the qualifications of Dr. von Eschenbach, who has been acting commissioner since last September. He is a respected surgeon and was president-elect of the American Cancer Society. But his record as director of the National Cancer Institute, a post he holds even as he runs the F.D.A., gets mixed reviews.

cont'd...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/opinion/25sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin