While the Food and Drug Administration remains in political limbo over the Plan B pill, which can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, UCF's Student Health Services already has a plan.
The pharmacy in Student Health Services "will have Plan B if it goes over-the-counter," Karen Yerkes, an advanced registered nurse practitioner at the health center, said via e-mail.
Plan B, an emergency contraceptive commonly called "the morning-after pill," is currently available with a prescription. A prescription can be obtained from a doctor or nurse practitioner at the SHS building, Yerkes said. The pharmacy in SHS keeps it stocked.
Plan B is not RU-486, which is a chemical abortion pill. Plan B is available over-the-counter in several Canadian provinces, according to an article published by MSNBC on May 19, 2004. Several states have found a legal loophole and made the pill available over-the-counter despite the FDA's ruling, according to an Orlando Sentinel article. Florida has not done this.
Students requesting Plan B will be given an appointment "as soon as one is available," Yerkes said. Plan B can be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, but it is most effective within the first 24 hours.
SHS is training more nurses to screen patients for Plan B use "in order to expedite the services to patients," said Dr. Michael Deichen, associate clinical director at Student Health Services.
Regina Oliver, a 20-year-old literature major, said that when she requested Plan B, workers at SHS were "really inflexible," and that they "didn't seem to really care." Oliver said that her experience trying to find Plan B was "probably the most traumatic point … of my adult life."
Oliver immediately began trying to find Plan B after a condom broke during sex. She carried an Emergency Contraceptive Hotline card and began trying to find a doctor or pharmacy that would provide the drug. She could not find one that was within her optimum time frame.
She then tried Student Health Services. It was over the summer and she wasn't signed up for classes, but she was scheduled to meet with a psychology professor that day for an override code. She brought an e-mail from the professor to SHS, but it wasn't enough to waive the $75 fee for non-students. SHS recommended she come back the next day when she would be in the computer as a student, Oliver said.
"Realistically, because the medication is only available by prescription, there can be relatively small time delays," Deichen said via e-mail. "We always want to hear about problems that students may encounter so that we can create systems to better serve them."
SHS has a patient advocate who may be looking into Oliver's situation further.
"Fortunately, non-students are free to pursue care through usual methods - their private physician, a walk-in center, a family planning clinic," Deichen said.
Oliver couldn't afford the $75 fee and the pill combined because she had only $100 in the bank.
"We begged them for so long," Oliver said. Oliver, who has no car and no license, finally got the pill for $50 from Planned Parenthood.
"This is the reason it should be available over-the-counter … We live across the street from a Walgreens," Genevieve Metzger, a 23-year-old Biology major and Oliver's roommate who drove her to Planned Parenthood for the pill, said.
"It seems like [Student Health Services] doesn't have a firm policy on these kinds of things," Metzger said.
"It was really awful," Oliver said. "I burst into tears multiple times. I was so frustrated because I was terrified."
From start to finish, it took nearly 10 hours to find Plan B.
Plan B's developers applied to the FDA for permission to sell the pill over the counter in April of 2003. In December of 2003, an FDA advisory committee voted to approve the switch 23-4. However, in 2004 the FDA announced the drug would not receive approval, saying that younger adolescents might engage in riskier sexual behavior with the knowledge that an emergency contraceptive was easily available.
The Government Accountability Office, Congress's oversight office, released a report in early November of this year that said the denial was "unusual."
The acting director of the FDA, Steven Galson, stood behind the FDA's decision despite the Joint Committee's findings. He did this in part because he was concerned of "behavior implications for younger adolescents."
Daniel Booth, president of the UCF chapter of the College Republicans, approved of the FDA's rejection.
"We need to teach responsibility and some accountability," he said. "[Plan B] opens us up to more disease and sexually transmitted diseases as well. It could have the potential for a trickle-effect."
Research suggests otherwise. A study was conducted after emergency contraceptives went over-the-counter in Great Britain and published in British Medical Journals Online. It surveyed women ages 16 to 49 over three years. The study concluded that making emergency contraceptives, like Plan B, over-the-counter "does not seem to have led to an increase in its use, to an increase in unprotected sex or to a decrease in the use of more reliable methods of contraception."
"Fifty percent of high school students are having sex anyway, regardless if they have abstinence-only education or they don't," Veronica Stoler, president of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, said.
"In a beautiful, wonderful, nuclear family, their parents would be teaching them about sex and reproduction and how to be safe and how to be protected, but they don't," Stoler said. "When you need [an emergency contraceptive], you need it, and there's a definite time window to use it."
The GAO report also said there were conflicting accounts of whether or not the decision to deny Plan B came "before the reviews were completed."
Booth said he is unconcerned about the FDA's possible political motivations.
"Drugs get denied for a variety of reasons," he said. "There's always the case for political reasons."
However, Carrie Groebner, president of Uncommon Grounds, disagreed. "It's all about abortion politics," she said. "I think that's really the bottom line.
"America is in this sexual identity crisis," Groebner said. "It really feels that way."
"I just hope that one day it actually gets approved," Stoler said. "Theoretically, in a beautiful, wonderful world, it would be. But right now we're fighting to keep the meager rights that we actually have."
Stoler recommended getting a prescription for Plan B in advance. SHS will not give out prescriptions beforehand, but Planned Parenthood will.
Plan B is not the only form of emergency contraception. Twenty-one birth-control pills have been approved for emergency contraceptive use, according to a flier given out by FMLA. These pills must be dosed properly. For a list of dosing schedules by pill, visit http://ec.princeton.edu/worldwide/default.asp.
Plan B is currently the only pill dosed specifically for emergency contraception in the U.S.
If you need more information on Plan B, or need to find a doctor to get a prescription, call 1-888-NOT2LATE. You can also visit http://ec.princeton.edu and search by ZIP code.
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