December 22, 2005
Volume 7 / Number 50
House Takes and Interest in the RU-486 Poison Pill
Dear Colleague:
A House subcommittee has chosen to investigate the dangers of the abortion
pill, RU-486, in a Christmas gift to America’s women and all those who
love them.
Steven W. Mosher
President
RU-486 has been killing mothers as well as children, and Congressman Mark
Souder (R.-Ind.) hopes to get to the bottom of what the FDA is doing about
it. A House subcommittee he chairs has begun a major investigation into
the safety of RU-486 (mifepristone), the use of which has so far killed at
least four American women since the FDA approved it in 2000. Mifepristone
(sold under the brand name Mifeprex) induces abortion medically, and is
used as an alternative to surgical abortion in the early stages of
pregnancy.
A December 21 letter to FDA Acting Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach
contains a detailed list of questions regarding the FDA’s own
investigations into RU-486’s safety record (see PRI’s website www.pop.org
for the letter and more information). The letter seeks physician,
autopsy, and other records so that the subcommittee can conduct its own
review, and asks about the off-label regimens often used with mifepristone
(off-label uses are legal but not approved by the FDA). Souder also wants
to know why it took so long for the drug’s maker, Danco Laboratories, to
add the risk of bacterial infection to the drug’s warning label. All four
American women who died from taking RU-486 had dangerous bacterial
infections. Souder chairs the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy, and Human Resources of the U.S. House’s Committee on Government
Reform.
The investigation comes soon after the New England Journal of Medicine
published an article suggesting that RU-486 abortions may be ten times
more likely to cause the death of the mother than surgical abortions
performed at the same point in pregnancy (see PRI’s Weekly Briefing, Dec.
2, 2005, “Time for a RU-486 Rollback”).
We think it’s past time that RU-486 received more scrutiny since it’s a
drug that not only kills unborn children, but sometimes their mothers as
well. Because of America’s lax medical reporting system, no one knows how
many women may have died after taking RU-486. As we wrote on December 2,
‘The FDA under the Clinton Administration officially rushed the approval
of RU-486 under expedited procedures normally reserved for drugs needed to
save people’s lives. Women have been paying with their health and even
their lives since.'”
This drug was rushed to market by the FDA, and it turns out that a major
study published in one of the world’s most prestigious science journals
presents data showing that the drug is ten times more likely to be deadly
for women than surgical abortion. If feminist groups that supposedly
exist to protect women’s rights cared, they and their legions of media
allies would be screaming up and down about this scandal. After all,
surgical abortion-on-demand is widely available, cheap, and relatively
safe for the aborting mother, so why do feminists cling to the dangerous
RU-486?
Their dedication to RU-486 is further proof that they don’t care about
women, but about abortion–anywhere, any time, for any reason, by any
means possible. Not only can they not accept that artificially ending a
pregnancy accepted by a woman’s body is obviously unnatural and unhealthy
for that woman, they cannot accept the questioning of medical means to
achieve that pregnancy termination. Just as they fanatically defend
puncturing the skulls and vacuuming out the brains of almost-born
nine-month-old children who could simply be delivered immediately instead,
they stand by the killer drug.
The four American women who died from RU-486 suffered from gruesome
infections. “[E]ach of the four women who died from septic shock were
infected by Clostridium sordellii, a potent anaerobic bacteria,” Souder
wrote in his letter. “It is also known that a Canadian woman died from
septic shock linked to C. sordellii after taking RU-486. These women did
not possess other risk factors or underlying medical conditions that would
have predisposed them to sepsis. In general, they were young and
healthy.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to detect these infections because the symptoms
mimic those caused by medical abortion (a medical abortion is one induced
by drugs rather than surgery). “[A]lthough these women complained of
weakness, nausea and vomiting, these symptoms are consistent with the
medical abortion procedure, and they had no fever to indicate an
infection,” Souder noted. “Nevertheless, each woman died soon after being
hospitalized.”
Souder asked that the FDA respond to his questions by February 6. Then
there should be congressional hearings. Then RU-486 should be aborted.
Joseph A. D’Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.
(For Congressman Souder’s letter and more information, go to www.pop.org ).
