By Gudrun Schultz
NEW YORK, United States, April 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New York Times reported last Saturday on dangers associated with the use of the chemical abortion drug RU486.
Abortion providers are beginning to question the drug’s safety after the deaths of two more women who died in March after taking the drug. The deaths have raised the concern of doctors who prescribe chemical abortion drugs..
“None of these women should be dying; it’s shocking,” Dr. Peter Bours, an abortion provider in Portland, Oregon, told the Times. He is rethinking whether to offer chemical abortions to his patients.
RU486 has been linked to the deaths of more than 10 women in Europe and the U.S. as well as multiple cases of severe and bloody side effects. The F.D.A has received notice of more than 600 cases of complications including extreme nausea, cramping, excessive bleeding and haemorrhaging, and incomplete abortion requiring surgery, since the drug was first marketed.
Despite the dangers associated with the medication, the F.D.A. has not pulled it from the market and abortion advocates continue to promote its use.
Planned Parenthood’s vice president for medical affairs, Dr. Vanessa Cullins, said, “both surgical and medication abortion are extremely safe and effective procedures.” Both have “comparable risks with the exception of what we have recently seen as it relates to septic fatalities.”
The risk of death associated with the use of RU486 is slightly higher than one in 100,000, almost ten times greater than that of surgical abortions. Five deaths in the U.S. were caused by infections with an unusually virulent bacterium called Clostridium sordellii, which is normally of little danger.
After an investigation last year, F.D.A. officials said there was no definitive link between the drug and the bacterial infections.
Leading Researcher Proves RU-486 Causes Septic Shock Deaths
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jul/05072802.html