Politics
Tuesday April 11, 2006
FDA Issues "Information" on Two Recent RU486 Deaths
Researcher believes RU-486 has led to many more deaths than those reported
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By Gudrun Schultz
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 11, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The FDA has released another public notice regarding the deaths of two women who died after taking the chemical abortion drug RU486, or Mifeprex (mifepristone).
According to the report, the FDA has found one death to be unrelated to an abortion or the use of Mifeprex. The other, with symptoms of infection, "continues to be under investigation."
There have been five previous deaths in the U.S. caused by the use of the drug-four from infection leading to sepsis (infection of the blood stream) and one from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy that ruptured after the woman took Mifeprex.
Despite the mounting deaths and over six hundred reports of serious complications, from incomplete abortions requiring surgery to life-threatening haemorrhage, the FDA has refused to pull the drug from the market.
Although all four women who died from sepsis after taking the drug were infected with Clostridium sordellii, a normally harmless bacterium suddenly turned deadly, the FDA does not see Mifeprex as the common link in the deaths.
"We do not know whether using Mifeprex or misoprostol caused these deaths. FDA has tested batches of Mifeprex and misoprostol and has not found any contamination with the type of bacteria involved in the four cases," the statement read.
Randall O'Bannon, a researcher with the National Right to Life Committee, told the Agape Press he believes RU-486 has led to many more deaths than those reported.
He pointed out that clinics who dispense the drugs may not know if a woman suffers severe complications after taking them because she would normally be treated in a hospital, not by the clinic or doctor who gave her the medication.
Under such circumstances, he said, deaths that occur as a result of Mifeprex may get recorded as due to complications from serious infections or natural miscarriages.
O'Bannon said abortion rights' activists use inaccurate methods of analysing usage rates of the drug in order to make RU486 appear safe for women.
"They count [usage] by the doses that are sold to clinics or doctors, not actually the number of women who have taken the pill," he said, "and then they multiply those sales figures by a factor of three because a lot of these people are changing the dose."
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Two More Women Die After Medical Abortion with Abortion Pill RU-486, FDA Warns
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06031702.html
FDA Reveals 607 Adverse Events Related to RU-486 Abortion, Including Five Deaths
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06010301.html
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