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Tuesday May 9, 2006
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FDA Conference on RU-486 Deaths to Examine Bacterial Connection
By Gudrun Schultz
ATLANTA, Georgia, May 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the agenda of an upcoming conference on the bacterium responsible for the deaths of at least four women after using the chemical abortion drug RU-486.
The one-day workshop, entitled the Emerging Clostridial Disease Workshop, will address scientific questions about deadly infections caused by the normally benign bacterium Clostridium sordellii and its link to the use of the abortion drug Mifepristone.
Used in combination with the drug Misoprostol, the abortion agent causes the death of a baby in the early stages of pregnancy by destroying the lining of the womb, depriving the child of essential nutrition.
In addition to the four confirmed deaths related to the use of the drug, the FDA has received over 800 reports of adverse effects from the drug’s use that include severe life-threatening haemorrhage and incomplete abortion requiring surgery.
Despite the extensive catalogue of complications, the FDA has refused to pull RU-486 from use, instead issuing warnings to doctors and consumers of potential problems.
The goals of the conference include “to identify research needs and priorities that will enable rapid progress in understanding the virulence…and risk factors contributing to reports of morbidity and mortality associated with Clostridium sordellii” along with another bacterium unrelated to the use of the drug.
The workshop is intended to indicate the direction for further research into the bacterium and to provide recommendations for detecting cases and conducting surveillance of diseases and organisms.
The possibility of regulatory action against the drug will not be debated during the workshop, reported the Wall Street Journal Online yesterday. An FDA official told the Journal the agency might consider further moves, but it first wants a better scientific grasp of the issues.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
FDA Issues "Information" on Two Recent RU486 Deaths
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06041105.html
U.S. Mainstream Media Reports on RU-486 Deaths
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06040505.html
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