Comments on: Women On Waves Making Waves With Abortion Ship http://www.frcblog.com/2007/05/women-on-waves-making-waves-with-abortion-ship/ The Blog of Family Research Council Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:53:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: PG http://www.frcblog.com/2007/05/women-on-waves-making-waves-with-abortion-ship/comment-page-1/#comment-400 PG Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:14:23 +0000 http://new.frcblog.agathongroup.com/?p=260#comment-400 Suricou, You are unfair to say that RU-486 is used in order to make the drug sound intimidating. It is used beause it is the term most readers will recognize -- like the FRC bloggers, most Americans are science-illiterate and couldn't tell you what chemicals distinguish mifepristone from aspirin, much less from misoprostol. Suricou,
You are unfair to say that RU-486 is used in order to make the drug sound intimidating. It is used beause it is the term most readers will recognize — like the FRC bloggers, most Americans are science-illiterate and couldn’t tell you what chemicals distinguish mifepristone from aspirin, much less from misoprostol.

]]> By: Suricou Raven http://www.frcblog.com/2007/05/women-on-waves-making-waves-with-abortion-ship/comment-page-1/#comment-399 Suricou Raven Mon, 07 May 2007 17:09:20 +0000 http://new.frcblog.agathongroup.com/?p=260#comment-399 Im not even going to bother looking at the link regarding RU-486. Ive heard it far too many times before - all the scare stories about women killed by it. But its never mentioned just how many times its used each year - statistically, its a very safe drug. France had it long before the US, as did some other European countries, they never had any problems. Even the scare stories are exagerations, often blaming the drug for a death when the actual cause was unrelated. And please, stop calling it RU-486! That is not the name of the drug, its just the numerical identifier it was given while undergoing FDA review and approval. Its name is Mifepristone. Calling it by the numbers is just a transparent attempt to make it sound more intimidating. In the US, since FDA approval was granted in 2000, the number of fatalities has been... eight. But of those eight, five were killed not by mifepristone, but by the follow-up drug misoprostol - used both in medical abortions, and to induce labor. Yet misoprostol never gets the blame. Even the darling child of the campaigners, Holly, died as a result of the use of misoprostol - and yet her name was used to campaign for banning mifepristone. Why? It makes no sense! That leaves three cases remaining. Of those, one was the result of a complication caused by an undiagnosed ectopic pregnency. Unfortunate, but you cant blame the drug for that one. So, two cases where the mifepristone caused death. Two. Out of all the times it was used in the US during seven years, a total of two fatalities. If you consider that safety level risky enought to justify a ban, its time to prohibit the sale of Asprin. Im not even going to bother looking at the link regarding RU-486. Ive heard it far too many times before – all the scare stories about women killed by it. But its never mentioned just how many times its used each year – statistically, its a very safe drug. France had it long before the US, as did some other European countries, they never had any problems. Even the scare stories are exagerations, often blaming the drug for a death when the actual cause was unrelated.

And please, stop calling it RU-486! That is not the name of the drug, its just the numerical identifier it was given while undergoing FDA review and approval. Its name is Mifepristone. Calling it by the numbers is just a transparent attempt to make it sound more intimidating.

In the US, since FDA approval was granted in 2000, the number of fatalities has been… eight. But of those eight, five were killed not by mifepristone, but by the follow-up drug misoprostol – used both in medical abortions, and to induce labor. Yet misoprostol never gets the blame. Even the darling child of the campaigners, Holly, died as a result of the use of misoprostol – and yet her name was used to campaign for banning mifepristone. Why? It makes no sense!

That leaves three cases remaining. Of those, one was the result of a complication caused by an undiagnosed ectopic pregnency. Unfortunate, but you cant blame the drug for that one.

So, two cases where the mifepristone caused death. Two. Out of all the times it was used in the US during seven years, a total of two fatalities.

If you consider that safety level risky enought to justify a ban, its time to prohibit the sale of Asprin.

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