Report: Politicized FDA adrift

WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) -- A standoff over the "morning-after" birth control pill has left the Food and Drug Administration adrift with no one at its helm.

The last permanent FDA commissioner quit two months after his confirmation in 2005 and it appears the current nominee, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, may never get a vote in the Senate, the Los Angeles Times said Sunday.

At issue is a dispute between Senate Democrats and the Bush administration over how to regulate sales of the "morning-after" pill known as Plan B, the Times reported.

Critics on the left accuse the FDA of stalling in making a decision on whether to allow over-the-counter sales of the pill.

Ignoring its own medical reviewers' recommendations to approve over-the-counter sales, the agency has used delay tactics which a federal judge recently characterized as having "all the earmarks or an administrative agency filibuster."

The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed suit in federal court to compel approval.