The Justice Department reported it will appeal a recent judicial decision that would require removing any age restriction from the purchase of the Plan B emergency contraceptive, according to a report published in USA Today.

The Food and Drug Administration has 30 days to approve over-the-counter availability of the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step to women of all ages, according to a decision issued by Judge Edward Korman of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.

Between 2006 and 2010, 1-in-9 sexually experienced women between the ages of 15 and 44 years had used emergency contraception at least once, the National Center for Health Statistics noted in a report released Wednesday.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a generic contraceptive made by Watson Pharmaceuticals, the drug maker said Friday.

Pharmacies may be misinforming teenagers about where they can locate emergency contraceptives without a prescription, according to a new study published in Pediatrics.

"I am appalled that politics has once again trumped science," wrote Brooklyn College Health Clinic director and nurse practitioner Ilene Tannenbaum in a letter to the New York Times. That reaction summed up much of the medical community's response to the Department of Health and Human Services' overruling of the Food and Drug Administration's decision to make the Plan B contraceptive pill a full nonprescription product.

Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Wednesday issued a public statement that the agency was prepared to approve Plan B as a nonprescription medication, but reversed that decision following a directive from the Department of Health and Human Services Wednesday morning.

The Food and Drug Administration will decide on Wednesday whether to remove merchandising restrictions on the emergency contraceptive Plan B and allow the product to be merchandised in the front-end without age restrictions, according to a report published Monday in the Washington Post.

Illinois Circuit Judge John Belz on Tuesday ruled that Illinois pharmacists could refuse to dispense the emergency contraceptive Plan B, despite a 2005 edict that required pharmacists to dispense Plan B, regardless of their religious beliefs, according to published reports.

Drug maker Watson Pharmaceuticals has made an emergency oral contraceptive available by prescription in the United States, the company said Wednesday.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved an emergency contraceptive pill made by a French...