What is in the new policy?
Under the new FDA policy, pharmacies will be able to stock and supply abortion pills to pregnant people who obtain a prescription. Those who do participate will need to undergo a special certification process to ensure safety and compliance under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies program (REMS).
“Because there are so many remaining restrictions in place on mifepristone, there are a lot of requirements that the FDA is imposing on pharmacies that plan to dispense mifepristone,” Dr. Ushma Upadhyay of the University of California’s Global Health Institute told Yahoo Finance.
“Pharmacies have to develop a system to track who is prescribing the mifepristone. With each specific prescription, the prescriber would have to fax or email a certification form to that specific pharmacy if the pharmacy doesn’t already have one on file. These are the kinds of systems they have to develop so they can ensure with each prescription that comes in that it is written by a certified prescriber.”
In addition to system protocols, pharmacists at participating retail locations will also be required to undergo training to distribute mifepristone. It’s unclear how long the certification process will take and how many retail pharmacies will register. But according to multiple reports, a few major pharmacies are already racing to obtain certification. Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman recently announced that the pharmaceutical giant was “in the process of registering and training” their pharmacists.
CVS also stated that it plans to “seek certification to dispense mifepristone where legally permissible.”
