Politics
Tuesday May 9, 2006
See today's LifeSiteNews stories
FDA Conference on RU-486 Deaths to Examine Bacterial Connection
By Gudrun Schultz
ATLANTA, Georgia, May 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the agenda of an upcoming conference on the bacterium responsible for the deaths of at least four women after using the chemical abortion drug RU-486.
The one-day workshop, entitled the Emerging Clostridial Disease Workshop, will address scientific questions about deadly infections caused by the normally benign bacterium Clostridium sordellii and its link to the use of the abortion drug Mifepristone.
Used in combination with the drug Misoprostol, the abortion agent causes the death of a baby in the early stages of pregnancy by destroying the lining of the womb, depriving the child of essential nutrition.
In addition to the four confirmed deaths related to the use of the drug, the FDA has received over 800 reports of adverse effects from the drug’s use that include severe life-threatening haemorrhage and incomplete abortion requiring surgery.
Despite the extensive catalogue of complications, the FDA has refused to pull RU-486 from use, instead issuing warnings to doctors and consumers of potential problems.
The goals of the conference include “to identify research needs and priorities that will enable rapid progress in understanding the virulence…and risk factors contributing to reports of morbidity and mortality associated with Clostridium sordellii” along with another bacterium unrelated to the use of the drug.
The workshop is intended to indicate the direction for further research into the bacterium and to provide recommendations for detecting cases and conducting surveillance of diseases and organisms.
The possibility of regulatory action against the drug will not be debated during the workshop, reported the Wall Street Journal Online yesterday. An FDA official told the Journal the agency might consider further moves, but it first wants a better scientific grasp of the issues.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
FDA Issues "Information" on Two Recent RU486 Deaths
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06041105.html
U.S. Mainstream Media Reports on RU-486 Deaths
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06040505.html
Back to TopSHARE THIS STORY: E-mail Print Newsvine Digg Reddit Del.icio.us Facebook
Latest Headlines
- Texas Bishop Repents Publicly for Catholic Hospital Which Was Doing Sterilizations
- Poll Shows a Solid Majority of Canadians Want Legal Protection for Unborn Children
- Interview: Bishop Explains Why a Bishop "Would Consider It a Privilege to Die to End to Abortion"
- Christian-Founded Dating Website eHarmony Forced to Cater to Homosexuals
- Italian Government Must Act Fast to Define Food and Hydration as a Human Right to Save Eluana: Prominent Italian Lawyer
- Brazilian Christian Censored and Fined for Making "Homophobic" Remarks in Book
- Grandmother's Account of Traumatizing Experience with Abortion Moves Jamaican Parliamentarians to Tears
- Bush Pushes Ahead with Regulations to Protect Doctors’ Conscience Rights
- Levant Acquitted after Republishing Letter by Pastor Previously Found to Be “Hate Speech”
- The Death of Catholic Culture and the Election of Barack Obama
- Brazilian Psychologists Prohibited from Helping Catholic Church Screen Out Homosexual Priesthood Candidates
- Letters to the Editor for Friday, November 21, 2008
- US Election Message to Catholic Bishops Part III: The Broken Window Strategy
Most Read this Week
- Italian Nuns Refuse to Kill Eluana
- Lawsuits Proliferate Demanding Proof of Obama's Natural-Born Citizenship before Electoral Vote Count
- Charleston Priest Tells Obama-Supporting Catholics to Confess before Receiving Communion Again
- Christian Prayer Group Sexually and Physically Assaulted by Homosexual Mob
- Mormons, Knights of Columbus Face Chilling Threats and More Vandalism for Prop. 8 Support
- The Coming "War" Between the Obama Administration and the Catholic Church
- Vatican Cardinal: "A New World Order is Gaining Ground"
- Arnold Schwarzenegger's Wife: I'm "a Catholic in Good Standing" But Also Pro-abortion and Pro-Homosexual
- Update: Nationwide Homosexual Anarchist Organization Behind Attack on MI Church Planning Further Disruptions
- Obama Fortifies Administration with Team of Anti-Life, Anti-family Radicals
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.