Continuing Contraception Care After Trump’s Orders

In light of recent actions over the last two weeks with our new administration, I wanted to provide updates and guidance to my pharmacist peers regarding reproductive health care.

On Friday afternoon, some CDC websites went down as content is being reviewed for compliance with President Trump’s executive orders. Pharmacists, along with other health professionals, rely on the CDC resources to provide care, including contraceptive care. Our pharmacist scope of practice is determined at the state level. The state regulations and protocols allowing pharmacists to prescribe contraception refer to the CDC guidelines — primarily the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use, along with the U.S. Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive Use. While the CDC website for healthcare professionals that houses these contraceptive guidelines is currently unavailable, the guidelines have not been retracted or rescinded. In fact, the CDC MEC/SPR app is still working and the websites for the MMWR report and appendices for the 2024 MEC are still up.

I wanted to be sure you were aware of this distinction to avoid any interruptions in the valuable services you provide. Our team at Birth Control Pharmacist anticipated that some content may become unavailable. To make sure you all have access to these important guidelines, we have PDFs of all the current contraception and STI guidelines and summary charts available on our website. Please utilize these resources as you continue to provide contraceptive care to your community. If you’d prefer to have laminated, hard copies at your practice site, you can order those to be mailed to you.