| ■ New Generation Birth-Control Pills Highly Effective: FDA | 07.01.29 |
| Recent news stories have created misconceptions about the effectiveness of newer generation birth-control pills, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency said the stories inaccurately reported that the newer birth-control pills are much less effective at preventing pregnancy than pills that were approved decades ago. In fact, the newer products are highly effective at preventing pregnancy, the FDA said in a news release issued Tuesday. The agency also said the news stories mistakenly reported that a meeting this week of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee was called to discuss the need for higher standards of effectiveness for newer generation birth-control pills. In fact, the two-day meeting was called to discuss clinical trial designs that reflect the diversity of birth-control pill users, expectations for effectiveness and safety, and user acceptability of newer generation products, the FDA said. The advisers concluded Wednesday that birth-control pills sometimes fail, but setting limits on how often that could happen would put newer, low-dose contraceptives off limits to women, the Associated Press reported. |