Mifeprestone: a Pill That Kills

[Zosimus41]

When reading this article I was sick to my stomach

A Battleground in the War on Women

By Denise J. Hunnell, MD

WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 27, (Zenit.org).- I started to feel pain in my abdomen unlike anything I had ever experienced. Then the blood came. It was gushing out of me…I sat there for hours…bleeding, throwing up into the bathroom trashcan, crying and sweating.

These are the words of Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood clinic director and now pro-life activist, describing her abortion using the drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone. She recovered from this horrendous ordeal after eight weeks of severe pain, bleeding and exhaustion.

Unfortunately, her experience is not unique. Even the National Abortion Federation, a pro-abortion advocacy group, admits that such side effects are the rule, not the exception, for abortions using mifepristone, commonly also referred to as medical abortions. Nausea, severe pain, heavy bleeding, diarrhea, fever and chills are part of the process. The known but less universal side effects are bleeding severe enough to require a blood transfusion, infection and/or death.

This brutal option for first trimester abortion was developed in France in the 1980s. It works by blocking progesterone, a key hormone that maintains the lining of the uterus to support the developing fetus. In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the use of mifepristone in the United States under a fast tracked approval process normally reserved for unique life-saving therapies. This allowed the marketing of mifepristone without holding it to the usual standards of safety and efficacy. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint soundly criticized the process:

Defining pregnancy as a life-threatening illness was a thoroughly political, not scientific, decision. Any reasonable person committed to protecting the health and safety of women should conclude that the approval process for RU-486 deserves an independent review.

 

[sacred_words]

Sickening. Women deserve a million times better than this, and yet WE’RE the bad guys.

 

[LoyalViews]

Wow

 

[rlg94086]

Here’s a link: zenit.org/article-35091?l=english

 

[austenbosten]

Sickening. Women deserve a million times better than this, and yet WE’RE the bad guys.

No offense, but don’t the unborn children deserve better?

 

[Not_Sure_1]

The unborn child is innocent. The woman chose this.

 

[sacred_words]

No offense, but don’t the unborn children deserve better?

Indeed they do. Everyone deserves a chance at life, whether unborn, differently abled, elderly, etc. It’s so sad to see what our society has come to.

 

[sacred_words]

The unborn child is innocent. The woman chose this.

Not always. Look at the Silent No More website, and you’ll see dozens of stories where women were coerced and forced into aborting their children.

 

[Alan55]

It is very tempting to look to anecdotal evidence of the safety of a drug, even RU-486, but the incidence of serious side effects is about 1.5 in 1000 according to medical studies. I am not diminishing the serious of any individual’s experience of such side effects or the impact of the intended use of RU-486. However, this is a misleading way to convince people to avoid taking this drug.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Unfortunately, her experience is not unique. Even the National Abortion Federation, a pro-abortion advocacy group, admits that such side effects are the rule, not the exception, for abortions using mifepristone, commonly also referred to as medical abortions. Nausea, severe pain, heavy bleeding, diarrhea, fever and chills are part of the process. The known but less universal side effects are bleeding severe enough to require a blood transfusion, infection and/or death.

The wording in the article is deliberately misleading. The author is practically lying about the claims made by the National Abortion Federation. You can see exactly what they have to say about mifepristone here:
prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/facts_mifepristone.html

 

[Rhuarc]

I suppose one reaps what they sow. Perhaps their pain could be seen as part of the penance that would go along with having said abortion using these pills. That is if they are penitent, which I hope they are.

 

[vz71]

The wording in the article is deliberately misleading. The author is practically lying about the claims made by the National Abortion Federation. You can see exactly what they have to say about mifepristone here:
prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/facts_mifepristone.html

Seems to me truthful.

The article states that it is common, and the NAF has admitted to it.

The website for the NAF specifies:

Complications are rare, but may include infection, excessive vaginal bleeding requiring transfusion (occurs in approximately 1 in 500 cases), incomplete abortion or ongoing pregnancy which requires a suction abortion (see above).

1 in 500 is very common.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

1 in 500 is very common.

Compared to winning the lottery, yes. Its about 3 times less common than infant mortality though (6.3 deaths/1000 births ) Would we say that it is “very common” for babies to die in the US?

 

[L_piperatus]

Seems to me truthful.

The article states that it is common, and the NAF has admitted to it.

The website for the NAF specifies:

Quote:
Complications are rare, but may include infection, excessive vaginal bleeding requiring transfusion (occurs in approximately 1 in 500 cases), incomplete abortion or ongoing pregnancy which requires a suction abortion (see above).

1 in 500 is very common.

I agree that 1 in 500 is very common, and it’s totally insane to subject otherwise healthy women to a drug that causes severe adverse reactions with such regularity. So, we are giving a drug which makes healthy women sick and a drug that kills women who were perfectly healthy before taking the drug - this is the additional factor which makes the use of Mifepristone so unethical, beyond the primary fact that it kills babies.

We have severe bleeding requiring transfusion in 1 in 500 cases, plus we haven’t even begun to count the other serious side-effects: infection, incomplete abortion. Women have DIED of cases of infection and sepsis caused by incomplete abortion, after the use of Mifepristone.

So, women take a dangerous drug with serious and life-threatening side-effects, and for what?

WHAT ARE THE MEDICAL BENEFITS TO JUSTIFY TAKING SUCH A DANGEROUS DRUG?

Does it stop cancer? No.
Does it save the patient from some lethal disease? No.
Does it cure some life-threatening infection? No.

Then, please, what’s the medical benefit that justifies taking this drug and subjecting the patients to its nasty side-effects, including the RISK OF DEATH?

Oh, yeah. It kills the baby. It “terminates” the pregnancy. That’s the “benefit”. That’s the “benefit” that convinced the FDA to give fast-track approval to Mifepristone, and to look the other way when it came to its serious and sometimes lethal adverse effects.

For a comparison, let’s look at the well-known case of Vioxx, the anti-inflammatory drug that Merck withdrew in 2004 from the market, and paid billions of $ in settlements to the families of patients injured and killed by the drug Vioxx. Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib :

Adverse cardiovascular events

VIGOR study and publishing controversy

The VIGOR (Vioxx GI Outcomes Research) study, conducted by Bombardier, et al., which compared the efficacy and adverse effect profiles of rofecoxib and naproxen, had indicated a significant 4-fold increased risk of acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) in rofecoxib patients when compared with naproxen patients (0.4% vs 0.1%, RR 0.25) over the 12 month span of the study. The elevated risk began during the second month on rofecoxib. There was no significant difference in the mortality from cardiovascular events between the two groups, nor was there any significant difference in the rate of myocardial infarction between the rofecoxib and naproxen treatment groups in patients without high cardiovascular risk. The difference in overall risk was by the patients at higher risk of heart attack, i.e. those meeting the criteria for low-dose aspirin prophylaxis of secondary cardiovascular events (previous myocardial infarction, angina, cerebrovascular accident, transient ischemic attack, or coronary artery bypass).

Merck’s scientists interpreted the finding as a protective effect of naproxen, telling the FDA that the difference in heart attacks “is primarily due to” this protective effect (Targum, 2001).

APPROVe study

In 2001, Merck commenced the APPROVe (Adenomatous Polyp PRevention On Vioxx) study, a three year trial with the primary aim of evaluating the efficacy of rofecoxib for the prophylaxis of colorectal polyps. Celecoxib had already been approved for this indication, and it was hoped to add this to the indications for rofecoxib as well. An additional aim of the study was to further evaluate the cardiovascular safety of rofecoxib.

The APPROVe study was terminated early when the preliminary data from the study showed an increased relative risk of adverse thrombotic cardiovascular events (including heart attack and stroke), beginning after 18 months of rofecoxib therapy. In patients taking rofecoxib, versus placebo, the relative risk of these events was 1.92 (rofecoxib 1.50 events vs placebo 0.78 events per 100 patient years). The results from the first 18 months of the APPROVe study did not show an increased relative risk of adverse cardiovascular events. Moreover, overall and cardiovascular mortality rates were similar between the rofecoxib and placebo populations.[28]

In summary, the APPROVe study suggested that long-term use of rofecoxib resulted in nearly twice the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke compared to patients receiving a placebo.

So, an increase in myocardial infarctions from 1 in 1000 cases (0.1%) to 1 in 250 cases (0.4%), in elderly patients who were already at a risk of infarction even in the absence of any medication, was enough to force Merck to pull Vioxx from the market, and pay billions of dollars in settlements, even though the studies failed to show an increased risk of cardiovascular event related and overall deaths after taking Vioxx.

Yet, Mifepristone which is known to cause severe bleeding and even DEATH due to infection/sepsis, in young women who were perfectly healthy before taking the drug, is somehow safe enough and even merits fast-track approval by the FDA?

Can we spell D-O-U-B-L-E S-T-A-N-D-A-R-D?