In a unanimous vote, 17-0, a panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended that the agency approve the first over-the-counter birth control pill.
The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to allow a birth control pill to be sold over the counter for the first time. An advisory committee opens a two-day hearing Tuesday.
Birth control pills are available in the U.S. only with a prescription. Now a drugmaker is asking the FDA to approve a progestin-only contraceptive that would be available without one at pharmacies.
The Comstock Act, which passed in 1873, virtually outlawed contraception. In The Man Who Hated Women, author Amy Sohn writes about the man behind the law — and the women prosecuted under it.
