In developments that have turned a new spotlight on the failure of the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to rule on over-the-counter status for the morning-after contraceptive known as Plan B, an attorney for former FDA head Lester Crawford said April 29 that her client will refuse to testify in a Plan B lawsuit brought by a reproductive rights advocacy group.

Attorney Barbara Van Gelder told the New York Times that she has counseled Crawford to take his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if he’s asked in court to answer questions about what happened to Plan B when he was commissioner of the FDA.

In a separate development, attorney Van Gelder confirmed that Crawford is currently being investigated by a grand jury for "financial improprieties and lying to Congress." Crawford resigned from the FDA two months after he was confirmed last year, raising questions about his reasons for doing so. According to the Associated Press, Crawford had sold more than $50,000 in shares in a company regulated by the agency a month before he resigned, but it is not clear whether that is the situation being looked at by the grand jury.

All of the publicity surrounding Crawford is bringing new attention to the Plan B controversy, which has been simmering since before Crawford became head of the FDA last year. Crawford’s nomination to that post had been held up by senators who wanted to know why Crawford, when he was acting commissioner of the FDA, had ignored the advice of an advisory committee and refused the application of Plan B’s makers, Barr Laboratories, to market the contraceptive pills over the counter.

To ease senators’ criticism of Crawford’s nomination, Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt promised that, if he were confirmed, Crawford would take action to clear up the Plan B controversy. After he was confirmed to the FDA post in July 2005, however, Crawford postponed indefinitely any action on the contraceptive.

Plan B has not moved since President Bush named Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, a cancer specialist, to head the Food and Drug Administration following Crawford’s resignation. Von Eschenbach’s nomination has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, but in a notice published in the Federal Register, the agency has asked for further comment on the question of whether making Plan B available over-the-counter would lead to promiscuity by young teenagers. Concerns about possible misuse of the morning-after contraceptive by very young women was cited by Crawford as the major reason for his disapproving the Barr company’s request for over-the-counter status for Plan B.

Plan B, which is currently available by prescription only, is a formulation of birth control medications already on the market. The procedure involves doses to be taken within a short period of time after unprotected sexual intercourse, making ready access to the medication in drug stores important, according to reproductive rights advocates.