FDA confirms RU-486 abortion drug kills

Fourteen women have died in the United States alone and several thousand have experienced an "adverse event" after taking the abortion drug RU-486, according to a "quietly released" government report.

A Food and Drug Administration document, called the "Mifepristone U.S. Postmarketing Adverse Events Summary," is being highlighted by Liberty Counsel, a public interest legal organization that fights on behalf of the right to life, among other issues.

"I hate to say this, but we told you so," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law. "We warned that the RU-486 abortion drug would kill and injure women. But the Obama administration and its abortion allies have lost common sense, because they are blinded to reality by their radical commitment to the holocaust. President Obama and the FDA must halt this destructive abortion chemical."

The report reveals the dangers of taking the drug, even though the Abortion Care Network reports on its website that many women "feel that Mifepristone is private and more natural."

Among the details revealed:

There were 2,207 cases of any adverse event by the cutoff date of April 2011.
14 women died.
612 were hospitalized, but did not die.
339 experienced a blood loss that required a transfusion.
256 suffered infections, and 48 had severe infections.

The report said the deaths were blamed on sepsis, the use of drugs, methadone overdose, delayed onset of toxic shock-like syndrome, suspected homicide and ruptured ectopic pregnancies.

"There were five additional deaths in women from foreign countries … who used mifepristone for termination of pregnancy," the report said.

"Severe infections generally involved death or hospitalization for at least 2-3 days, intravenous antibiotics for at least 24 hours, total antibiotic usage for at least 3 days, and any other physical or clinical findings, laboratory data or surgery that suggest a severe infection," the report said.

According to Liberty Counsel, the study "also reveals that abortion businesses are misdiagnosing or misusing this drug. In the face of the FDA's warning against prescribing it to 'patients with confirmed or suspected ectopic pregnancy,' there were 58 cases where it was given to women who had an extopic pregnancy."

The organization reported: "Mifepristone suppresses a woman's immune system. In some cases, fragments of the unborn child or other cells are not entirely expelled from the uterus, causing infection and complications. RU-486 can result in endometritis (an irritation of the lining of the uterus), pelvic inflammatory disease (involving the nearby reproductive organs), and pelvic infections with sepsis (a systemic infection spreading beyond the reproductive organs)."

Liberty Counsel noted that the results reinforce other findings by the FDA from 2006, which revealed 1,100 women had experienced serious medical repercussions from taking the drug.

Columnist Jill Stanek wrote just a few months ago on two of the cases, identified in the reporting of Lifenews.com.

Those cases involved a 29-year-old Hispanic woman who died in 2008, just six days after taking oral mifepristone.

The report said her symptoms were "severe abdominal cramping, vomiting, and diarrhea on day 4. She was hospitalized on day 5. … She died of sepsis with acute respiratory distress syndrome."

Another was a 21-year-old white woman who died 12 days after taking mifepristone.

"She died of sepsis with acute renal failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation."

"Many questions," wrote Stanek, "Where did these deaths occur? Why did the CDC wait so long to alert the public, and why in such a nonpublic way."

According to the Family Research Council, the drug appeared to be a problem from the beginning. In an online statement, the organization said, "Ten years ago, the FDA's approval process for RU-486 was flawed, relying primarily on French data that the FDA admitted was marked by 'carelessness,' 'fraud,' and 'evidence tampering.' And while the abortion industry achieved a major victory with the approval of RU-486, women have been the victims of the abortion agenda.

"Other drugs with less extreme adverse affects have been pulled from the market quickly, but not RU-486."

Mifepristone is the drug that abortion industry leader Planned Parenthood wanted to use in the now-challenged "telemedicine abortions" in which the pregnant woman never meets the abortionist.

The procedure was being implemented in Iowa, with plans to expand, but also is being challenged with demands for official investigations.

The issue is that under the procedure set up in Iowa, the patient never saw the doctor dispensing the drugs.

A pro-life organization in mid-America, Operation Rescue earlier obtained confirmation of the process.

The organization documented in a recording Planned Parenthood's explanation of its setup.

"The physician doesn't actually come," the abortion company worker explains. "The physician who prescribes you the medication would be on a computer screen. You'll be on a computer screen. You can see each other and communicate. They're just not physically there.

"You would press a button that's on the screen, and a little box would open up with the medication in it."

Listen to the call: