As a perennial Top Five PAC contributor to political campaigns, the Illinois State Medical Society is one of the most influential lobbying groups in the state.
ISMS’s 2006 candidate questionnaire includes its position against pharmacists dispensing the morning after pill without a prescription. To read the question in its entirety, see page 2.
ISMS’s position is welcome news to those wanting to maintain common-sense physician oversight of this megadose of hormone(s) that require a prescription for lesser doses.
Meanwhile, an internal confidential email made public through the court case Gonzalez v. Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles reveals that Barr Laboratories, makers of the Plan B morning after pill, cut a sweetheart deal in 2004 to give “Planned Parenthood special pricing at $4.50 and $4.25, respectively, for the next five years.”
Those singing the praises of Planned Parenthood’s family planning altruism should know that Planned Parenthood of Chicago charges $21 for the MAP, a 366% to 394% mark-up (charging an additional $40 for a nonrefundable “online assessment” if purchased over the Internet). Planned Parenthood of East Central IL charges $24, a 433% to 464% mark-up (with an additional $28 “nonrefundable charge for [the] on-line service”).
With its cash windfall in mind, why would Planned Parenthood push for IL pharmacies to dispense MAPs without prescription? Simply, it wants a monopoly on lucrative MAPs.
Take a look at HB2535. According to it, pharmacists could only dispense MAPs if entering into a “collaborative agreement” with an “authorized prescriber.” Guess who plans to be the “authorized prescriber”?
Nevertheless, according to Planned Parenthood’s confidential memo, “Our immediate interest is to develop and protect our market base.”

9. Under current law, pharmacists can only dispense prescription drugs that are accompanied by a prescription from a health care professional with prescribing authority. Pharmacists are driving to dispense certain drugs, such as emergency contraception, with a prescription. Moreover, pharmacists are pushing to provide therapeutic substitutions. Therapeutic substitution refers to pharmacists dispensing an alternate chemical entity from the same therapeutic class for the drug product prescribed by a physician (this is not substituting a generic, it is substituting a wholly different medication). ISMS believes such initiatives would allow pharmacists to become unsupervised prescribers and initiate care they are not licensed or trained to provide. Physicians are aware of drug interactions, drug-disease interactions, the patient’s concurrent illnesses, and the risks of additive toxicity because of patients’ other medical problems. Pharmacists do not have sufficient information to make these decisions.
Would you support of (sic) oppose allowing pharmacists to dispense medication without a prescription?