Heath and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rejected a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to make the "morning after" birth control pill widely available over the counter on Wednesday. The emergency contraceptive, called Plan B One-Step, was available to women over 17, but would have been available to women 16 and under had the decision not been overruled. The initial decision by the FDA was sure become a political football during the campaign season.

It was supposed to help pregnant women deal with their morning sickness. But when the women who took thalidomide gave birth they were confronted with a horror story. Children were born with a birth defects and other problems that could be fatal. It was 50 years ago the drug Thalidomide was withdrawn after it became clear it was causing serious and sometimes fatal harm to the unborn babies of thousands of women in Europe and around the world.

The Senate passed a bill Tuesday that could significantly alter food safety in the United States. Right now, the FDA only steps in when a recall is underway. Under the new law, the agency would be allowed to inspect any farm and try to prevent the kind of salmonella outbreaks that made the headlines last summer.

Benjamin England worked at the FDA for 17 years and founded FDAImports.com. He believes this legislation could lead to dramatic change, but only if the government can find the funding to back up the FDA's expanded role.

Today an FDA advisory panel meets with lawmakers to hammer out voluntary best practices for doctors who prescribe opiates. The regulation of opioid drugs like Oxycontin has loosened in recent years, as patient advocates asked for powerful narcotic painkillers for end-of-life care and cancer treatments. But in loosening restrictions for such cases, the FDA opened a window for wider prescriptions — and for abuse.

A possible E. coli outbreak in beef produced by the JBS Swift Beef Co. of Colorado has sickened people in nine states. The meat has been recalled, so check your fridge before your holiday cookout.

So far 23 people have been sickened across nine states.Wisconsin and Michigan appear to be the hardest hit by the outbreak so far, with the CDC reporting six people ill in each state. Other cases were reported in California, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York.

Most of the beef packages in the first recall bear the establishment number "Est. 969" inside the USDA mark of inspection and have identifying package dates of "042109" or "042209." The CDC urges consumers to check their refrigerators and freezers for beef products produced by this firm and purchased on or after April 21, 2009 and discard or return the recalled beef products to the place of purchase for a refund.

The Kroger Co. is recalling packages of meat with "sell by" dates of April 27 to June 1 in Ohio including northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana, western Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Illinois and eastern Missouri. The company said the suspect beef was sold under its store brands in more than a dozen states.

Other grocery retailers affected include: Hannaford Supermarkets, Stop & Shop, and Food 4 Less stores in the Chicago area, Fry's stores in Arizona,and Smith's stores in Arizona, Utah, and other western states.

The outbreak comes on the heels of a recall of Toll House refrigerated cookie dough products.

For more information head to the CDC's website

In 2001 dozens of public health groups around the world petitioned the FDA to make emergency contraception available over the counter, but the decision over whether to do that, and especially whether to make it available to women under the age of 18, dragged on for years bogged down in a political quagmire. Dr. Susan Wood worked at the FDA during this period as the assistant FDA Commissioner for Women’s Health. She resigned in protest to the FDA’s handling of Plan B, the brand name of the so-called morning after pill. Now, another four years later, a federal judge has ruled that the FDA wrongly bowed to the pressure of the Bush administration in its decision making process and relied on politics and not science. Susan Wood, now a research professor at the School of Public Health at George Washington University, talks with The Takeaway about where the FDA may go from here.