New safety warnings for abortion pill

[leftchick]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=Morning%20After%20Pill

~snip~

WASHINGTON -- An abortion pill implicated in the death of an 18-year-old California woman last fall will add new warnings linking RU-486 to the risk of serious bacterial infection.

Holly Patterson died Sept. 17, 2003, of septic shock caused by inflammation of the uterus. The teen died weeks after taking RU-486 to terminate an unplanned pregnancy. Anti-abortion activists seized upon her death in their campaign against these pills, including Danco Laboratories' product, Mifeprex.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Mifeprex in 2000 to terminate pregnancy up to 49 days after the beginning of the last menstrual cycle. The drug blocks progesterone, a hormone required to sustain a pregnancy. When followed by another medicine, misoprostol, Mifeprex terminates the pregnancy.

Mifeprex already carries a black box warning, the agency's most strident alert, to highlight other safety concerns. Now, the drug's black box warning will expand, adding information about the such rare but potentially life-threatening complications as serious bacterial infections and bleeding that can follow any abortion, including one induced by Mifeprex.

[eleonora]

1. ok ONE woman dies and oh boy, we can't have it anymore

Might as well ban tampons while they're at it.

[AndyP]

2. No kidding

Babies die while lying in their crib, well shit better start holding them 24/7

[TheWraith]

21. Excuse me, children...

But it sounds to me like you’re all opposing this on the most tenuous, bordering on ludicrous grounds just because it has to do with abortion. Any other time, if a medication was linked to a persons death, you’d be screaming for blood, particularly if they weren’t going to put additional warnings on it.

Either it’s okay for medications to kill people, or not. Please pick one.

[WindRavenX]

30. Viagra is responsible for more deaths than RU-486

You don't see many warnings on the box of that, do you?

[Almost_there]

45. You don't see the warnings on the box?

Actually, the warnings on Viagra just made national news, didn't they? The FDA shut down an entire series of commercials because they didn't have the specified warnings, so, yes, there are warnings. I don't take Viagra, but, I saw the list of warnings that the commercial omitted and it is HUGE. As to the number of deaths from Viagra, where are your sources? I mean, if someone takes Viagra against a doctor's orders, knowing the risks, you're going to blame Pfizer? That seems silly, doesn't it? "Don't take this pill if you have heart problems" seems straightforward, right?

I agree that the reason people on this thread are so passionate is that it is a freedom we are talking about, namely abortion, and not the death of a young woman from a prescription. I'd have to see the stats for the number of women who have taken RU-486, the number of infections, the hard "facts" as they are known before passing any judgement one way or the other. If this drug is unsafe, it damn well better be yanked from the market, and redeveloped to be safer for the mother. Perhaps the right wing fundies are going to start to like RU-486.. since it will kill the mothers that kill their babies, its like short circuiting the court system! Capital punishment AND a corporate profit! They'd love it!

~Almost

[Maraya1969]

42. I just read the inserts of these drugs

and it is imperative that the woman go back to the doctor after 2 weeks because the drug/drugs do not always cause a complete termination of pregnancy. Even if a woman has a miscarriage she is supposed to see a doctor to make sure the miscarriage is complete. If not complications can arise.

However, there were no deaths reported in 2 trials - one in US with about 800 women and another in France with 1,800 women.

Infection is possible but with proper follow up it is easily taken care of.

We don't know the specifics of what happened with this girl. This is one anecdotal incidence. It does seem that the anti-abortionists are using her death to further promote their agenda.

[Tiberius]

44. Okay, you want me to pick one

And I will: it's okay for medications to kill people. Seldomly.

Somehow things seem out of proportion, though, when drugs that the fundies don't like (such as RU-486) are given 1000 times more scrutiny than drugs like Vioxx, which were prescribed to millions and apparently caused lots of problems.

[Lizzie Borden]

56. OK. I used to work in an abortion clinic.

Anyone who has an abortion has a risk of bleeding. It's really not unusual, and when it happens you need medical attention. RU486 isn't any riskier than an actual abortion. I think this is a scare tactic and frankly, I wouldn't pay much attention to it. Think for yourself.

[dkofos]

54. Give them time

[Maple]

3. Available and used

everywhere else without all this hoopla. But it was bound to become a political football in the US.

[TheWraith]

22. So was Kevadon. NT.

[LisaM]

4. Well they did ban one kind of them

I can't remember the name - it was a long time ago. They were these huge things, about the size of canoes, and everyone I knew had received a free sample in the mail (I don't even think I was in college yet.) They caused toxic shock and that's when those warnings started.

[proudbluestater]

28. Lisa M. they were OB Tampons!

Several women contracted toxic shock syndrome from mostly that particular brand.

I want the government OUT of my uterus -- now. How many drugs like Vioxx remain on the market FAR too long because the profiteering drug makers and the corporate-owned FDA do nothing to enforce a ban? It's normally not until there is a ton of adverse publicity that anything is done.

One death? Call me later when it's more serious. Sorry to sound harsh, and I feel bad that anybody died at all, but is this the entire story? Was she cautioned to return to the physician's office if a fever started, for instance? Did she return as instructed? Many questions remain.

This drug was available in Europe for MANY years before our puritanical country ever approved it. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

[LisaM]

51. No, I remembered the name. Rely.

They were gigantic and were not on the market for long.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. And how many people smoke, knowing the risks?

[rkc3]

6. And drive cars, and fly in planes, and ride on trains.

Maybe I should stay at home and never leave the house - wait a minute - 90% of all accidents occur in the home. Whatever shall I do?

[Ducks In A Row]

7. women still die giving birth... maybe it's time to ban pregnancy itself

[iamjoy]

11. Yes! We Need To Share These Stories!

But will we since we would hate to exploit these women?

the Anti-Choice crowd has no qualms about exploiting anyone for their cause.

(and I use anti-choice here to distinguish from Liberals who call themselves Pro-Life and truly are)

[CTyankee]

38. thank you, ducks

Just last summer my daughter had to have an emergency C section after developing a paricularly vicious form of pre-eclampsia. She had had a very healthy pregancy and received excellent health care. Yet she still became very sick, frighteningly so, 3 weeks before her due date. She was in intensive care for 3 days after the C section. The baby was fine.

Yes, there are risks to mife. But please don't tell me that mife can and is used to help women and offers another choice to surgical abortion. If you don't look at the other side of the ledger -- risks inherent to pregnancy and child, you don't the real picture.

[Cerridwen]

8. Now there's a surprise

From my post just the other day;


The American medical community will continue to "discover" the health risks of abortion and possibly begin to include other "proven" health risks of various forms of birth control.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2685836#2685992

[politicat]

10. 1 woman dies from Mifeprex, 7.5/1000 pregnancies end in maternal death...

Which is more dangerous??

Gimme Mifeprex any day.

Abortion of any legal sort is far safer than pregnancy. Are we going to start banning getting knocked up as dangerous and a health risk?

What about the risk to the mother's bones and teeth from childbearing? Back problems, hemorrhoids, bladder problems? These sound like good reasons to ban childbearing to me. If those were the dangers of a make or model of car, you can bet that they'd be recalled yesterday.

Pcat

[Cerridwen]

12. There ya go bein' logical again. lol

Wouldn't it be grand if logic was applied to anything in this country any more.

[Tempest]

9. In contrast, Viagra has killed 130 men

How George Bush will ban abortion
Republicans and the religious right are working to outlaw abortion --
one small step at a time.

By Michelle Goldberg

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/12/abortion/index.html

Meanwhile, even as attorneys for pro-choice organizations were in court to block the Partial Birth Abortion Ban on Nov. 5, Reps. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., introduced a bill to suspend the FDA's approval of RU-486, the abortion pill. They're calling the bill "Holly's law," after Holly Patterson, an 18-year-old who died in September, a week after taking the pill, making her the second American woman to die from RU-486 complications. In comparison, according to the Food and Drug Administration, as of 1998, 130 Americans died after taking Viagra.

[4_Legs_Good]

16. OMG, that is the most amazing comparison I've ever seen

Wow! Way to go Salon!

david

[Columbia]

19. Do we have per capita rates yet?

[buddysmellgood]

23. Yes, but what a way to go :)

[bunkerbuster1]

40. Their concern is touching.

I'm so glad that fundie wingnuts are looking out for our best interests.

[Lefty48197]

13. When a woman take the "morning after pill" a fertilized egg fails

to adhere to the walls of her uterus, and ultimately create a pregnancy.
The Republicans call that murder.

[JPace]

14. Doesn't an I.U.D. do the same thing?

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Yes. eom

[NickB79]

32. Actually, I believe it prevents ovulation

I listen to Loveline all the time at work, and Dr. Drew Pinksky (who is a huge morning-after proponent) quoted a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine that strongly implied that the most common mode of action taken by the morning-after pill was to prevent ovulation, and only occassionally prevented implantation.

[arikara]

15. So the anti-choice nut cases'll ban this

and overturn Roe vs Wade then how many women will die in backroom abortions?

[not fooled]

25. Only poor and middle-class women will die.

The wealthy have always had, and will continue to have, access to safe, clean abortions. The religous kooks are only going to hurt those women who won't be able to afford "private" backroom medical services, once abortion is made illegal.

So once again the poor and middle class will bear the brunt of religous zealotry while the rich thumb their noses at the "morality" used to fool idiots into supporting the chimp.

[One Eye on Canada]

36. Not to mention victims of rape and incest

I ran into a woman I hadn't seen for a while in what I'll call the "rooms of recovery" last week. When I asked her where she had been, she reported she spent the summer fighting a losing battle with crack cocaine, and had been raped four times.

The good news is that she is now living in a halfway house, and is striving to to recover from her addiction and from the illnesses she contacted while "out there." She was given the "morning after" pill to keep her from getting pregnant after each rape, and I shudder to think what her life would be like if she had a pregnancy to deal with as well.

Of course, the "moral values" set may say she brought it all upon herself. But, as a person who is personally familiar with addiction and recovery, I think people who say such things are either revealing ignorance or the fact that they have a lump of coal where their hearts should be.

[GarySeven]

17. Here's the real safety warning:

WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that use of this pill in the prescribed manner will result in your immediate arrest and prosecution for murder of one of God's cytoblasts.

[zulchzulu]

18. Let's ban Twinkies too! Wait! Black box warnings...???

"Mifeprex already carries a black box warning"... Now, THAT's timely.

Let's ban Twinkies though. They could be used as kind of bad dildo replacements....plus they sort of look like penises.

[The Flaming Red Head]

20. Did toxic shock syndrome mean no more tampons?

NO. Prudence is warranted for every product.

[DemBones DemBones]

26. No, but it meant warnings on tampon packages and

I think ob brand tampons, which were implicated in more cases than other brands, went off the market.

[The Flaming Red Head]

33. They should put a warning

on men's penises. IMHO

[wickywom]

39. A small tattoo ...when they hit puberty?

Just kidding.

[The Flaming Red Head]

43. A bar code would help

then it could give you updates on where it's been.

[dkofos]

55. I have one on mine

[OKNancy]

34. No, not the case

OB is still on the market. There has been some linkage between absorbency and TSS and since OB is the most absorbent there may be some linkage. OB's are the best by far and have environmental pluses too.

[Samurai_Writer]

35. OB tampons are still on the market

I've been using them since they first came out (25 years ago?), because I like the fact they don't have a plastic or cardboard applicator. No problems at all. Perhaps you are thinking of another brand?

[Sunny_Sunshine]

41. The brand that went of the market was Rely

or something like that. I remember, I used them, they were better and didn't need changing as much which turned out to be a lot of the problem.

[musette_sf]

52. It was Rely

that they took off the market, and I stocked up on those like Elaine and her sponges. They were great.

[DemBones DemBones]

27. Re:Viagra deaths How many 18 year old men have died after taking Viagra?

The woman who died after taking RU-486 last year was 18, and that's mighty young to die.

Viagra is primarily taken by older men who are more susceptible to heart attacks and strokes so 130 deaths is more in line with acceptable risks for the targeted population. And that was 130 deaths out of how many thousands of men taking Viagra? A comparison of the % mortality of Viagra users and % mortality of RU-486 users would be useful. Does the Salon article give that? (Sorry, I don't click on Salon links as they inevitably turn out to be subscription-only and thus a waste of my time.)

RU-486 is taken by younger patients, and female patients, who have a longer life expectancy than men as well, so deaths in those patients should raise more alarm bells than deaths in older men. That doesn't mean a ban is appropriate, but the increased warnings are, just as tampons had warnings about toxic shock syndrome added to the packaging twenty years ago. The Viagra deaths have also been well-publicized and I'd think there'd be mention of the risk on that packaging as well.

Yes, there are people who want to ban abortion. But notifying women of the potential risks of abortion methods -- some methods are safer than others, and that's true even if you don't include RU-486 in the comparison -- is a good thing. Protecting women's health is one reason abortion was legalized in the first place.

If you don't care about safety, why not just try the old coat hanger method? Maybe make it legal for people to advertise their services as alternative abortion practitioners, providing cheaper but more dangerous abortions? After all, the government is meddling in our private lives by suggesting a drug might be dangerous.

Sheesh.

[fortyfeetunder]

29. And if you don't take the pill

the side effects are a childbirth, followed by 18-21 years of sleeplessness, exhaustion and hard work.

[Maat]

31. Guys, guys. RU-486 should be an option, the Plan B/

Moring-After should be, and the D&C should be (etc.). Birth control and condoms, hopefully will reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy up front, by and large.

And ... I personally believe that, since D&X ('partial birth') is so rare, used only in heart-breaking occasions, in which the health of the mother is greatly at risk, that should be a decision between a woman and her doctor.

But I don't have any objection to a reasonable warning ... but it had better be reasonable. And we had better educate young woman to compare any risk with the risks associated with pregnancy.

If you have any brains ... you talk it all over with your doctor anyway. I talked to two doctors to see what they believed before I chose my medication.

EOR. Thanks for listening. They will not intimidate young women - if I have anything to say about it.

Sitting on the toilet has a risk ... go ahead - warn me about it.

[wickywom]

37. I truly beleiive the political right has no intention..

of overturning R vs W..
the lawsuit implications to corporations would be tremendous if the religious right
suddenly began to care about all the terrible chemicals and such we ingest, breath and absorb everyday that kill and injure the unborn "babies".

Will we arrest women who drink too much coffee or take ibuprofen and have a spontaneous abortion in the early weeks?
How about women who drink or do drugs before they know they're pregnant?
Men could have thier wives arrested for child abuse
Will we arrest women who self abort fetuses from rape because it was God's will for her ?

It won't happen.
They can't add a provision to save a women's life and/or in case of rape because that would
be denying equal rights to one baby over another.

It will stand that as long as the "baby" can't survive on it's own it is not yet a "life".

We will start loosing access to abortion and other forms of birth control until the schism in the right splits money from faith and the pharmaceutical companies turn on the Fundies.
It will be soon--

[The Flaming Red Head]

46. They are going to overturn Roe v Wade (it's part of an agenda)

It's just a matter of time.

They already arrest women for not following doctor's orders during pregnancy.


It wouldn't surprise me if they began arresting women for ingesting tobacco and caffeine during pregnancy.

Arresting men for similar offenses that are thought to affect the fetus, (such as drug use) nah. That isn't going to happen. Anti-choice activism has always been more about taking away women’s rights, than about protecting fetuses.

This time it's going to happen. Get ready. The fighting has reached our homes and our right to privacy is almost gone.

[wickywom]

47. They will not.

It would cost them too much $$$$$$$$$$$.
Besides how else will they string along the Fundies for another election cycle.

I agree Religious Rights agenda is to overturn RvW.

The Corporate Right is all about the money... women can't spend money in jail..
and God knows they don't want their taxes to go up in order to feed all those
new welfare babies.

Think about it... women won equal status with R vs W.
It'd be like taking away our right to vote.
They can't overturn it, not legally, which works for them cause they don't really want to anyway.
Its all about appearances.
Laura and Barbara Bush used to and may still claim to be pro choice- but no one ever talks about it. My guess would be that most Repub. women of power would be against overturning it.... perhaps there is outing that needs to be done.

Its the BOOGIE man they use to distract us and control the Conservative Christians.
I still believe we must be vigilant.

Perhaps a 10 million woman march all over the country.

[The Flaming Red Head]

49. You're using logic and they never have. They'll over turn it.

They can put prisoners in for profit industries. As far as the suffering masses and all the unwanted kids; our fearless leaders/corporation heads, will roll up their windows, and tell their limo drivers to hit the gas, so they don't have to smell the stench, just like they do when they visit their factories in third world countries.

[PDX Bara]

48. Chattel vs Viagra

Back to the days of "Women as chattel." Heaven forbid that men would be denied their god given right to screw their brains loose but it's O. K. to deny women any right or means to protect themselves from any kind of enslavement, including that caused by an unwanted pregnancy. When working in the health insurance industry, it aggravated me to no end to have to approve benefit payment for Viagra but deny payment for birth control pills unless documented up the kazoo for use for another reason (i.e. certain kinds of acne). I do not understand the workings of the mind of a Republican woman other than to think part of it is missing.

On edit, forgot to mention that it seems that those who would deny a woman the right to seek a means of preventing or ending an unintended or unwanted pregnancy often are the very same ones who are also against any social or other programs that would help in such instances.

[wickywom]

50. about the last part...

they are against social programs because they worship the $--

Name one repub woman in office calling for rw to be overturned?
They will push for abortion limits but the law itself is safe.

The problem I have w/ the present woman''s rights movement is we spend too much time defending our beliefs.

We are equal members of society.
It is time to grab them by their balls and start demanding better access to better birthcontrol...
not shivering in fear of what they may deny us... that already is enslavement.

[LiberalBushFan]

53. Sorry, religious wackos

thanks for putting Bush in power, and he loves yall, but big pharm comes first any day. It might be fun to suddenly worried about FDA corruption, but you're not gonna win on this one.