Plan B and mythical teen sex cults

Goddess Tuptim Shrine, Bangkok, originally uploaded by S-E-B.

Why can't American women have the emergency contraceptive Plan B over-the-counter? Three words: "Teen sex cults." Actually, four words: "Mythical teen sex cults."

A group of New York women is suing the FDA for Plan B, OTC. Here's one of the documents that came up in discovery:

In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: “As an example, she [deputy operations commissioner Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” [Newsweek]

The FDA says that urban legends cause adolescent sex cults centered around emergency contraception. Interesting theory.

Comments

[rob helpy-chalk]

Alas, I am too old to join a teen sex cult. Why didn't they have those when I was young? Oh wait, they don't have them now.

[SamChevre]

It's sad, but there are urban legends that are less plausible that are widely believed. For example, I have heard several dozen times now the claim the Mountain Dew was designed to cause sterility/reduce sexual performance, and was then marketed to black males to reduce the black population--by people who actually believed it to be true.

[Eli]

I was in a government-funded teen sex cult called Tennessee Governor's School for the Humanities. Other kids I knew were in a sex cult called Pep Band, and don't even get me started on the Cheerleading/Football sex cult.

The lesson: you can't beat teen sex cults.

[suzib]

What they should do is skip the lurid fantasies and get planned parenthood to team up with a condom manufacturer and some young hip artists to create a "cult" condom that could be given away with every MAP. The packaging could explain how to avoid STDs and the design on the condom, would be cool enough to entice any guy to want to wear one. The STD protection is just as important as avoiding pregnancy.

[marsha]

What? HOw? Sex Cults? Cause suddenly another form of birth control is on the market?

How does this world continue? I would think it would just explode from all the pent up stupid gases it must be carrying around.

Thank god my sex cult was inspired by penises and vaginas. Much more interesting to build a sex cult around.

[Hawise]

One summer vacation, I convinced a group of children in the southern states that we had enough snow in Montreal that I walked to school through snow tunnels. I guess those children are all grown up now ;)

[MissPrism]

It's been available OTC in Britain for ages. We have adolescent sex-cult afternoon tea, with scones and cream.

[cfrost]

The phalli look like they're carved from hot dogs or some such sausage meat. Please tell me they're not part of the sex cult rituals.

[gordo]

SamChevre--

They really did a piss poor job of marketing Mountain Dew to black males, didn't they? Perhaps if they'd thought to include a few black actors in their ads, the campaign would have been more effective.