Stardate 20010615.1744 (On Screen): Like a lot of people, I've gotten my share of spam offering me chances to get Viagra. (Not that I took advantage of any of them.) Viagra is only available by prescription, and what some places were doing was to make it so that you could get a prescription through a web site. You'd answer a few questions, and then a prescription would be filled in your name and mailed to you, and your credit card would be debited. In theory, each of these was getting reviewed by a doctor. The FDA cried foul, and the people doing it were shut down. (I think some doctors lost their licenses to practice medicine.)
Now Planned Parenthood wants to do something similar with morning-after pills. While I think these drugs should be available to women who need them, I'm not so sure that this particular effort is well-advised. In the long run it could be counter-productive. The one difference is that they're not actually vending the drug; what they're doing is to give prescriptions (probably by phone, to the pharmacy requested by the woman using the web site). I can't see how this is any more legal than the Viagra case, though, and when they get stomped on by the FDA it could set the goal of better availability of birth control back considerably. (discuss)
