Abortion Drug RU 486 Likely More Dangerous Than FDA Numbers Suggest

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 11, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Abortion Drug RU 486 Likely More Dangerous Than FDA Numbers Suggest Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 11, 2006

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Figures from the Food and Drug Administration already paint a grim picture of the abortion drug RU 486 and how safe it is for women to use. But the numbers may be seriously underreported — making a risky abortion drug even riskier and causing potentially thousands of complications.

Despite the FDA’s announcement on Monday that the death of one of two recent women thought to have died from using the abortion drug was unrelated, six women have died and more than 850 have experienced medical problems after taking the abortion pills.

But Dr. Randall O’Bannon, director of research and education for National Right to Life, says those numbers are probably much higher.

He says the manufacturer of the drug, Danco Laboratories "plays with the numbers" and claims of widespread use and safety of the abortion drug "doesn’t seem to be true on either side."

O’Bannon told Agape Press that Danco overestimates the number of women who have used the abortion drug.

"They count these by the doses that are sold to clinics or doctors, not actually the number of women who have taken the pill and then they multiply those sales figures by a factor of three because a lot of these people are changing the dose," Dr. O’Bannon explained.

On the complication side of the equation, abortion practitioners don’t normally treat the women who experience problems after the abortion. The women normally go to their primary doctor or an emergency room and may never mention the abortion.

If they mention the abortion drug, the hospital or clinic may not report the complications to the FDA or Danco.

"They may or may not even be able to tell the doctor that they’ve taken this pill," O’Bannon told Agape Press. Should a woman die from using the abortion drug "it never gets reported as being a death due to this whole sort of process here."

Some of the deaths may never be reported as resulting from using the abortion drug, because the drug has produced a lethal infection in five of the women’s deaths and the death certificate may list infection as the cause of death.

"We think that they’re overestimating how many women have used it," the O’Bannon told Agape Press, "and they may be grossly underestimating the number of women who have been injured or have died because of this."

Worldwide, there are nine reported deaths from the abortion drug, including the six women in the United States and one in Canada, England and Sweden.

In addition to the deaths, 513 women required surgical intervention after the abrotion drug failed.

Two hundred thirty-seven of these involved hemorrhaging; sixty-eight of these required blood transfusions and 42 of these cases were listed as "life threatening."