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In this article we provide the research results for RU-486, a drug used to induce abortion in women.
Brown University researcher, Ralph Miech, MD, Ph.D., has developed models to explain why women have died after using RU-486, a drug-induced abortion that women take in two parts. The first part, mifepristone, shuts off nutrition to the placenta and the developing baby. The second part, misoprostol, a drug that is not FDA approved for obstetric use, causes contractions that expel the deceased unborn child. According to Dr. Miech, the abortion drug triggers a bacterial infection in the cervical canal that doesn’t normally occur. The bacteria, C. sordellii, thrive on the decaying tissue from the dying unborn child and impair the woman’s ability to fight off the infection that sometimes results in widespread septic shock. Women may not show signs of the infection until it’s too late.
This form of abortion has caused severe health problems for more than 600 women and death in at least five according to Food and Drug Administration documents. At least three of the five women who have died had the bacteria present in their systems upon investigation. This includes Holly Patterson, the California teen who died in September of 2003 after using the drug she obtained at a Planned Parenthood business. Other adverse side effects include hemorrhage that in some women was so severe as to require blood transfusions and conditions that required many women to undergo surgery to repair damage resulting from the abortion.
RU-486 carries the FDA’s highest level black box warning, which warns consumers that it is especially dangerous.11 In November of 2004, the FDA required Danco, the makers of RU-486, to improve its warning label to indicate that bacterial infections may occur and that women taking the abortion drugs many show no sign of infection such as fever.
