Plan B and a coke: vending machine pills.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Citings - Brief article

VENDING machines in the student health center at Pennsylvania's Shippensburg University offer an unusual product: the morning-after pill. Self-service Plan B has been available to students for the last two years, but a recent burst of publicity has attracted unwelcome interest from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which began investigating the legality of the sales in February.

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The vending machines sell 350 to 400 doses a year at $25 each. The pills can be legally sold over the counter to anyone 17 or older, and the health center is accessible only to people with a student ID. The Plan B vending machines are part of a long history of morally controversial products and services sold via machines, including...