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The Food and Drug Administration approves the first over-the-counter contraceptive pill, the Perrigo-manufactured Opill, broadening access to birth control across the country.
2023-07-13

The Pentagon announces that COVID-19 vaccinations will be mandatory for the U.S. military after the FDA approved the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
2021-08-25

The Food and Drug Administration approves the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine for emergency use in the United States.
2021-02-27

The Food and Drug Administration announces that they have formally approved Tozinameran, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
2020-12-11

The Food and Drug Administration approves remdesivir to treat COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. The drug, manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Gilead under the brand name Veklury, is the first fully approved COVID-19 treatment in the United States.
2020-10-22

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first treatment that genetically engineers patients' own blood cells to destroy acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The approval makes Novartis the proprietor of the first gene therapy to hit the U.S. market.
2017-08-30

The United States Food and Drug Administration announces it has relaxed its official requirements regarding the use of the abortion drug Mifeprex (RU-486). The current guidelines were based on 1990s medical evidence. Changes include reducing the number of physician visits required by abortion-seeking women, reducing drug dosage, and allowing women to take the drug for three weeks longer -- now a total of 70 days.
2016-03-30

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues a mandate that all artificial trans fatty acids (trans fats) must be eliminated within three years (2018) from all foods grown, imported to, or sold within the United States. It is the strictest and most final type of ruling, even more so than a black-box warning or a warning to list ingredients, that can be given from the federal agency, which has ultimate jurisdiction over the safety of all food and drug products, public or private, in the United States. The substances occur in processed meats and other foods, and have been repeatedly implicated in atherosclerotic coronary heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.
2015-06-16

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rules against a First Amendment free speech challenge to a regulation by the Food and Drug Administration requiring that tobacco companies put graphic images on their cigarette packaging. The imagery is designed to discourage smoking.
2012-03-19

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Provenge (sipuleucel-T), the first "vaccine" approved to treat cancer, for men with advanced prostate cancer.
2010-04-29