RU-486 is Killing Women
I've ranted and raved against mifepristone, not just for the obvious effects of inducing abortions, but because the drug simply isn't safe. Few studies, and the ones that were performed were so small as to be inconclusive, or so politically driven that they were ultimately worthless.
Now the politicalization of RU-486 is coming home to roost:
The federal government has called an unusual scientific conference to look into two related bacterial infections, one that killed four California women who took an abortion pill and the other that has caused outbreaks of diarrhea and colitis in hospitals and nursing homes across the nation.
Fifteen to 20 scientists who have studied the two bacteria have been asked to present their research at the conference, scheduled for May 11, an official at the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the abortion pill, Mifeprex or RU-486, is so controversial that some officials have been threatened after speaking about it publicly.
Security at the conference will be unusually tight, the official said. It will be held in an auditorium at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Attendees must register by April 15. The National Institutes of Health will also participate in the conference, according to a federal register notice.
Officials are concerned that the political controversy swirling around medical abortions may interfere with the scientific discussion, the F.D.A. official said in an interview.
'We hope to keep the focus on the science,' the official said. 'We're holding this in a secure government facility for a reason.' Mifepristone works by shedding the interior lining of the uterus, causing bleeding sufficient enough to induce an abortion. The problem is that it affects different women in radically different ways, from a mild period to literally bleeding to death. Before mifepristone was legalized in the United States, there was deep concern about it's results in France where it had been legal for years.
Still, because the issue was abortion and not science, pro-abortion lobbyists crammed it through the FDA process, much to the bewilderment of those I associated with at DEA.
To be honest, my previous concerns were the "bleeding on a gurney" effect where nurses could not stop the hemmoraging. There were something on the order of 400 deaths in France thanks to mifepristone, and we couldn't clearly identify why it was happening to some and not to others, and what if anything could be done about it.
But some didn't care at all. Politics first was the cry of NOW, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL. Lord help you if you stood in the way, because then you're just another one of those domineering, condescending males who can't possibly understand abortion, trying to impose your heavy-handed laws on women's bodies...
The new concern now seems to be the bleeding is inducing a form of toxic shock syndrome caused by a bacterial infection:
The two bacteria are Clostridium sordellii and Clostridium difficile, which generally live in the soil and in human intestinal tracts. Both thrive in environments with limited oxygen. When these bacteria infect the bloodstream, they can produce a toxin that causes something akin to toxic shock syndrome.
People infected with Clostridium sordellii, the one that caused the RU-486 deaths, often fail to understand their peril until too late in part because the infections often do not produce fevers. Here again is what gets me so upset. Lives could have been saved if we had just followed through on the process of studying - not pushing - mifepristone.
Yes, I am personally opposed to abortion, and think it is a social evil that should be obliterated. Professionally though, the ordeal of mifepristone should be a stark warning to NOW, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and every other pro-abortion group who pushed for the legalization of mifepristone, putting politics above a posteriori truth, because the lives of those young women are on their heads. What they did was criminal to say the least.
Let's hope the FDA is successful in re-estabilshing the independence of the scientific method.
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9 Comments:
Another intriguing mystery is why all four lethal Clostridium sordellii infections occurred in California.
If the 4 cases of bacteria were not related to the abortion pill - just the medication that caused the people in the nursing home to get sick (which I doubt was an abortion pill), would you be raving as much?
Still, it is not clear that Mifeprex is the only problem, he said. The abortion pill is followed by a contraction-inducing drug called misoprostol, which is given orally or placed in the vagina. All four California deaths involved vaginal misoprostol.
In Europe, where misoprostol is normally given orally after the abortion pill, there are no reports of fatal sordellii infections, McGregor said.
YES.
Based on what information, NOVA Dem?
That's the big problem. I don't care if it's RU-486, Vioxx, or Tylenol -- the procedure is there for a reason.
Before the scientists approved the drug in 2000 it went through extensive medical trials, now they want to ignore those!
The scientists at the fda are pretty worried about this being a political decision.
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