Family planning groups, women's organisations, obstetricians and gynaecologists, legislators, and national newspapers in the United States protested last week at the Food and Drug Administration's refusal to permit sales over the counter (without a prescription) of an emergency contraceptive.

In making his decision, Dr Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, overruled the organisation's own scientific advisory committee and its professional staff.

Many experts said it was an attack on contraception by the anti-abortion Bush administration. But Dr Galson defended …