I got this from fox news, I dunno why the ad's copied...sorry!
WASHINGTON —
Women seeking an acne medicine that can cause severe birth defects may
find it a little easier to fill their prescription: The government
announced some changes Wednesday designed to ease access to the
troublesome drug. A program called
iPledge was designed to ensure that every user of Accutane or its
generic competitors _ and every doctor who prescribes it and every
pharmacy that sells it _ follows strict rules to make sure that women
don't get pregnant while on the drug. Among those rules are
month-by-month prescriptions based on passing pregnancy tests. But last summer, the Food and Drug Administration
heard evidence that iPledge hasn't ended the problem: There were 122
pregnancies in the program's first year and another 37 in the four
months since. Another 19 pregnancies occurred in women who managed to
get the drug despite never enrolling in iPledge. Still, in October the FDA agreed to a few changes to the program, and announced Wednesday that iPledge is now implementing these changes: _Women
of childbearing age who don't fill a prescription within seven days of
a pregnancy test will be allowed to get another test and then fill the
prescription _ with the exception of the initial prescription. Until
now, those who didn't act within seven days were frozen out of the
program for the next 23 days. Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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