Abortion pill maker alerts doctors to 5 deaths

[truthpusher]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8620380/

Abortion pill maker alerts doctors to 5 deaths
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No evidence that RU-486 causes higher risk of infection, manufacturer says
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Reuters
Updated: 7:03 p.m. ET July 18, 2005
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WASHINGTON - Five women who took the abortion pill RU-486 have died from bacterial infections since its U.S. introduction nearly five years ago, the manufacturer reported on Monday.

"No causal relationship between these events" has been established with the drug, also known as Mifeprex or mifepristone, maker Danco Laboratories LLC said.

"Childbirth, menstruation and abortion, whether spontaneous, surgical or medical, all create conditions that can result in serious and sometimes fatal infection, and there is no evidence that Mifeprex and misoprostol present a special risk of infection," the company said in a statement.

Misoprostol is a drug that women must take two days after Mifeprex to complete the abortion.

Danco said it was sending a letter to alert physicians about the cases and updating warning information on the drug's label.

complete story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8620380/

[Tweed]

1. One a year can lead to a problem?

That seems a little out of whack. Maybe I don't know science, but one a year does not seem like you could even begin to think their is a correlation.

[fasttense]

2. The anti-women, I mean anti-choice wackos would love to see

RU-486 kill women. n/t

[silverlib]

3. Why "abortion pill" and not "morning after pill?"

snip "No causal relationship between these events" has been established with the drug, also known as Mifeprex or mifepristone, maker Danco Laboratories LLC said.


complete story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8620380/

[truthpusher]

4. I love posting this sort of stuff...

...you guys always enlighten me to the bias that is sometimes subtle yet ever-present.

[Baconfoot]

12. Note the differences between your post and Justitia's. Just saying. NT

[Justitia]

6. RU486 ("abortion pill") is not the same thing as the morning-after pill

These are two different medications.

[meganmonkey]

13. Thanks for pointing out this important distinction

To my understanding, the 'Morning after' pill is just a megadose of birth control to discourage fertilization. It needs to be taken within a short period of time after intercourse.

RU486 is taken when fertilization has already taken place.

[wicket]

24. you are correct

Anti-choicers try to blur the line between the 2 and the lazy media lets them get away with it.

[HuckleB]

25. Indeed.

And yet, too many pro-choice folks don't understand the difference.

Ugh.

[CTyankee]

5. Planned Parenthood

has a website, PPFA.org, for information on Mife. Also, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, www.agi.org.

[DanCa]

7. 5 out of 5 years

Lets see how many are died from causes unrealated to the pill? I mean could someone have wound up on the list and been in a car accident? Could another have been going thru severe depression unrelated to the pills side effects. I just dont trust raw data from one source any more when it comes to abortion. Remember they said abortion causes breast cancer. What am saying is I need more sources and more information before I can give you a informed response..

[Mz Pip]

14. How many women died

in complications from childbirth? How many women died from complications from violent rape?

Any procedure or medication is not 100% safe. Ever.

Now throw out all these medications and lets see how many women die from self induced abortions, from ODing on quinine or from some other form of medival or old wives tale attempt at ending a pregnancy.
Mz Pip
:dem:

[sam sarrha]

15. sounds like "Info for my side" mining...

[noonwitch]

30. Tampons/toxic shock has probably killed more women

And these deaths aren't necessarily even linked to the drug. It may be that the women are getting the bacterial infection because they are not practicing sanitary lifestyles to begin with.

[DanCa]

31. There are so many other factors

This study is a false correlation. Look at it this way. A doctor gathers a group of heavy kids and asks them how many kids have had a hot dog. They all raised their hands. The easy answer is all hot dogs make you heavy right? Wrong.
What did they have with the hot dogs? Potatoe chips and pop? And how many chips and sodas? And how many hot dogs with that? See the lazy thinking mind will just say the one hot dog will make the kid heavy and wont take in the other factor let alone the condiments on the hot dog in first case. (Or even the amount of exercise the kids got prior and previous to the digestion of the food they eat).

I am so tired of the uterus police practicing medicine without a license and am so angry with the up for making up commandments and tarnishing my gods rep. Jesus himself never said one thing about abortion or orientation its just an emotional guilt trip laid on by some current day evangelist to divide people for their own political causes. Sorry my ocd was kicking in. :D Have fun everyone and let me know if I gotta stop watching monk. Noonwitch I completly agree with you 100 percent.

[WindRavenX]

8. I believe that...

...more have died from complications resulting from Viagra than RU-486.
In 2001, more than 130 men have died from Viagra:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/31/health/main327247.shtml

No need to panic.

[VegasWolf]

9. Those guys that died from Viagra, I wonder if they could close the coffin

lids properly?

[livinginphotographs]

10. Or Vioxx.

But that's being brought back to the market.

This story is bullshit.

[prolesunited]

17. That's a good point

Next time someone argues that RU-486 should be taken off the shelves, tell them then they also must be lobbying for a ban on Viagra, which has killed substantially more men.

[stanwyck]

11. Reminds me of the official govt. website

which stated that abortions cause cancer. Not true. But the Bushies had to be forced through continued complaints to delete that false information.

[HuckleB]

16. A little perspective, perhaps.

This is standard procedure for any drug when such findings occur. There is no reason to get up in arms. I mean, should the drug company hide these findings from physicians? Didn't many of us flip out about drug companies hiding information in regard to Vioxx? Chill, ya'll, chill.

Oh, yeah. On edit: As noted above, RU-486 is not the "morning after pill."

[zanne]

18. The anti-choice people will be happy to exploit this.

And this administration, and the MSM, will be only too happy to assist them.

[HuckleB]

19. That doesn't mean the information should remain hidden.

All information can be exploited.

[zanne]

20. I didn't say the information should remain hidden.

I was saying that the Right Wing will jump all over this. Please don't put words in my mouth.

[HuckleB]

21. So what's your point, then?

That's obvious.

But, knowing that, what's the point of your response to my post?

On edit: For posterity, I didn't put words in your mouth. I made a comment. Why get so up in arms?

[zanne]

22. OK, HucleB

I'm wrong and you're right. Do you feel better now?

[HuckleB]

23. No.

You can't even spell my name right.

Sheesh.

;)

:hide:

[Bridget Burke]

26. The US ranks 18th in Maternal Deaths...

Unless you're 100% celibate, some risk is always involved. Pregnancy & childbirth will kill more women here than RU-486. (A co-worker's friend had complications late in her pregnancy. Despite the best medical care, she & her twins died.)

www.populationaction.org/news/press/news_072495.htm

Events involving the drug must be studied, of course. Which women are high risk for complications? What are the early symptoms?

[smoogatz]

27. I wonder what the risk is compared to surgical abortion?

Or childbirth? Dollars to doughnuts, RU 486 is much safer than either. Yet it's still almost impossible to get in the U.S.

[0007]

28. ...cough cough

[NNguyenMD]

29. RU-486 works by modulating the hormonal conditions of pregnancy

Its unlikely that it causes immunosuppression to this degree considering what its physically made of. I never read the raw literature on the original research that led to the development of RU-486, but sideeffects like immunosuppression or autosplenectomy would have been picked up immediately.

The bacterial organism they named Clostridium sordellii, I've haven't heard of in med school yet (then again I'm not a very good student to begin with) but its relative, Clostridium Dificil, is a very famous causes of pseudomembranous colitis (antibiotic related diarrhea) a common hospital infection related to multi-sprecturm anti-biotic used.

I'm not a doctor, and am not dispensing medical advice, but just based on the pharmacological properties of RU-486...I find it unlikely that it is linked to this sort of bacterial suceptibility.

At the same time however, there is a lot of things about a lot of drugs out there that the health care community doesn't figure out until much later.