The deadly truth about RU-486 (16 views) Subscribe   
  From:  David (DavidABrown)    9/25/2003 11:29 am  
To:  ALL   (1 of 2)  
 
  704.1  
 
To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34779 

Thursday, September 25, 2003

The deadly truth about RU-486

Posted: September 25, 2003

1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jane Chastain


 2003 WorldNetDaily.com 

On Sept. 17, a California teen died seven days after taking the abortion drug RU-486, and three days after taking its prostaglandin chaser, Cytotec. 

An autopsy was performed but, miraculously, the Alameda County coroner is still investigating and said it may take several weeks to determine what killed Holly Patterson. 

The cause of death likely will be listed as septic shock, which is one complication of an incomplete abortion. That will allow the Food and Drug Administration to maintain that the drug, which it rushed through the evaluation process and bent the rules to approve, has a good safety record and has not been directly linked to any deaths. 

Even with the limited facts that have been made available on the complications from the abortion pill, this is a stretch. 

Since RU-486 was approved on Sept. 28, 2000, Danco, the company that distributes the Chinese manufactured pill, has reported 400 complications to the FDA which include heart attacks, severe bleeding, life-threatening blood clots, respiratory distress and infection. 

At least two other North American women are known to have died after taking this drug. In one, the cause of death was listed as a bacterial infection; in the other, the cause was listed as ectopic pregnancy. 

However, we may never know the real death toll from RU-486 because the cause of death usually is sanitized with one or more medical terms that obscure the truth. 

Abortion is not something that families of victims are anxious to talk about. We know what happened to Holly because of the courage of her family which has come forward to try to prevent others from making the same deadly mistake. 

Holly's father, Monty Patterson, was unaware his daughter was pregnant or that she had been given the abortion drugs by a Planned Parenthood clinic until four hours before her death. 

Holly's trouble began when she took two tablets of misoprostol, which is given as a follow-up to RU-486 to induce contractions to expel the dead embryo. 

Cramps and bleeding are expected, but how much is too much? That is the unknown for most patients in this process where the rules are purposely vague and the reporting is left up to the abortion providers. 

Holly's family thought she was having menstrual cramps. Her boyfriend took her to the hospital on Sept. 14. She was given painkillers and sent home. Two days later, she was rushed back to the hospital. By the time her father was called in and told what really happened, she was too weak to write or speak and had to blink her eyes and nod to communicate. 

Here is what you need to know about this drug: 

It appears that the FDA compromised the approval process, perhaps at the urging of the Clinton administration. 

It was done under the "Accelerated Approval of New Drugs for Serious or Life-threatening Illnesses." In order to do this, the FDA had to classify "the termination of an unwanted pregnancy" as "a serious condition." This designation allows the FDA to approve drugs that "could be harmful and ineffective" prematurely. 

This is unconscionable! A pregnancy is not an illness and the termination of one is not a serious condition. However, many unsuspecting women and girls are led to believe that, because the drug has been approved for use by the FDA, it is safe. 

Furthermore, RU-486 is so ineffective when used alone, the FDA approved it for use with misoprostol, a prostaglandin that causes contractions but was developed as an ulcer drug. Misoprostol is marketed under the name Cytotec. Searle, the company that manufactures Cytotec, was so outraged that it issued a letter to physicians saying that this was an off-label use for this drug that was never tested or intended for the induction of labor or abortion. In other words, any physician who uses Cytotec for these purposes does so at great risk. 

There are other indications that the FDA further manipulated the process. Dr. Mark Louviere, an Iowa physician, reported that he rendered emergency treatment to a woman who was a participant in the trials. He came forward after reading a press report that there were "no complications among the 238 women participants" in his state. Dr. Louviere told the Waterloo Courier, "If near death due to the loss of half of one's blood volume, surgery and a transfusion of four units of blood do not qualify as a complication, I don't know what does." 

What really killed Holly Patterson? It was the deliberate politicizing of the FDA approval process for this abortion drug, a process that began during the Clinton administration and sadly has not been addressed by President Bush.

Jane Chastain is a WorldNetDaily columnist and host of the Judicial Watch Report radio show, heard daily from 4 to 5 p.m. EST on the USA Radio Network. 

Donations needed and may be sent through Pay Pal (www.paypal.com) to joycelang@dcemail.com or joycelang@marysremnant.org or sent by snail mail to 12107 Maycheck Lane Bowie, Md. 20715




David A. Brown
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   From:  David (DavidABrown)    9/25/2003 4:03 pm  
To:  ALL   (2 of 2)  
 
  704.2 in reply to 704.1  
 
California teen Holly Patterson, 18, died last Wednesday after taking the RU-486 abortion pill obtained from a local Planned Parenthood clinic in Hayward. 

According to family statements made to the media, a physician at Pleasanton's Valley Care Medical Center said Patterson died of septic shock -- a severe bacterial infection. 

"The doctor told me she had fragments of the fetus still left in her uterus and that caused the infection," said Monty Patterson, Holly's father. 

Patterson's death marks at least the seventh woman in North America who has died after taking the drug that the FDA approved in 2000 as "safe and effective." 

Patterson's parents are upset that the abortion occurred without their knowledge and called Friday for doctors to take a new and harder look at how the drugs are administered. 

"They told her it was safe and it killed her," Monty Patterson, her father, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I felt so helpless ... I didn't have a chance to be involved." 

"The medical community treats this as a simple pill you take, as if you're getting rid of a headache. The procedure, the follow- ups, it's all too lackadaisical. The girl gets a pill. Then she's sent home to do the rest on her own. There are just too many things that can go wrong." 

RU-486 abortions are carried out in a two-step process -- the woman first takes mifepristone (RU-486) which causes the lining of the uterus to break up. Two days later, a second pill called misoprostol causes the uterus to contract, expelling the embryo and the uterine lining. 

Many pro-life advocates have claimed that the FDA's approval ignored public health concerns. 

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said Monday, "Holly's death is an unnecessary tragedy. Was she given all the information about the danger of the drug before taking it? Why weren't her parents told that she was undergoing such a serious procedure? How many more lives will be taken before the FDA reconsiders whether RU 486 is as 'safe and effective' as they originally thought? 

"Holly's death teaches us the tragedy that occurs when young women enter abortion clinics needing help and information and receive neither," Perkins said. "Meanwhile, parents are left out in the cold while their children undergo dangerous procedures with severe health consequences. Holly's death should be the subject of national concern, but unfortunately her story has yet to reach the national news." 

John Diggs, a Massachusetts internist, has long doubted the safety of this method of abortion. 

"Any drug like this that's causing those number of deaths under any other circumstances would be withdrawn or at least studied," he said. "But this one was pushed through under fast track, meaning that it bypassed all the usual studies and the time and the peer review to make sure that a drug is safe," Diggs said in a recent Concerned Women for America press release. 

Dr. Richard Hausknecht, medical director for Danco Laboratories, the drug's manufacturer, claims 225,000 women have been treated in the United States since the drug was approved three years ago and that the company has passed along about 400 reports of adverse events, ranging from excessive bleeding to bacterial infections. Even with those reports, FDA representatives still maintain the drug has a good safety record. 

The Chronicle reported that Patterson may have been prescribed the pill according to a different protocol than those recommended by both Danco Laboratories and the FDA. 


 2003 Maranatha Christian News Service 

(Post date: September 22, 2003) 




David A. Brown
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