The protocol at Planned Parenthood clinics for administering RU-486, the drug that causes medical abortions, was officially changed in order to reduce the resulting serious infections and deaths. Planned Parenthood is now trying to claim kudos for making medical abortions safer, for the mother.

When the FDA first approved RU-486 — a combination of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol — as an abortifacient for the general public’s use, manufactured by Danco Laboratories, their guidelines suggested oral use as the safest way to effect an abortion. However, Planned Parenthood (PP) had been telling women to use the drug as a suppository, and by their own admission giving it thusly in their clinics. This resulted in serious cases of infection and even death.

An article in the September issue in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy in 2005, yes folks, 2005, noted that researchers and doctors already knew that mifepristone could result in rare bacterial infections. Mifepristone shuts off nutrition to the placenta and the developing baby. (Misoprostol is used to cause contractions, forcing the body to expel the dead baby.)

Dr. Ralph P.  Miech wrote that mifepristone causes changes that allow C. sordellii, a usually non-threatening bacteria, to spread into areas of the body where it is not normally found. “C. sordellii thrives in this low-oxygen environment and derives nutrition from the decaying fetal tissue,” he said. Miech noted that C. sordellii infections are “rare outside of mifepristone use,” and added that death can occur because of septic shock, which is a result of inflammation.

Miech’s conclusion was corroborated by Frank Gentle, the coroner investigator who looked into the death of one of the women who took the drugs. Gentle said, “The abortion caused inflammation, which caused the shock, which caused her death.”

As for misoprostol, researchers at the University of Michigan found that it, too, can cause C. sordellii to spread when injected directly into the reproductive tract, because the misoprostol suppresses key immune responses. So it seems that the combination of misoprostol and mifepristone can deliver a double dose of bacterial trouble to users.

Already in 2004 the FDA required Danco to include in its black-box warning label that serious bacterial infections may occur even though no symptoms are obvious in some women. So it’s odd that in a phone interview Mary Fjerstad of Planned Parenthood stated this week she was not sure why taking the pills as a suppository might cause infections.

In 2006, Planned Parenthood started administering the combo drugs orally, finally conforming to the FDA’s initial protocol after reports of five deaths in 2005 alone came to light; women who died within a week of undergoing medical abortions. (The number has risen to eight since then.) Along with this, they started testing women for sexually transmitted diseases, and if present, also prescribed antibiotics in conjunction with the abortifacients. From there they’ve moved on to automatically administering both the drugs and the antibiotics.

The New England Journal of Medicine now reports that the rate of infection in women has decreased, from approximately 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 16,000. More precisely, 3 infections out of 46,777 women.

By disregarding and violating the FDA’s minimal guidelines, Planned Parenthood put many, many women at risk. And they continue to do so by advising women to take the second part of the abortion pill process at home, where, without medical oversight, complications such has massive hemorrhaging can occur.

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Sheila said:

RU Crazy? RU486...better killing through chemistry no matter who it hurts.

July 10, 2009

OperationCounterstrike said:

Epidemiology 101 You think this story illustrates that medical abortion is dangerous. You are wrong. This has been noticed and replicated in animal models after fewer than forty human deaths. Out of tens of millions of uses of the mifepristone-misoprostol abortion regimen. That's just about nothing. LITERALLY one in a million (or close). Statistical noise. You could make up for the risk by getting a patient to take daily vitamins for ONE WEEK. That's how small it is. Every one of those patients would have suffered a many-times greater likelihood of dying if she had endured childbirth. There is no cure for extremely bad luck. The fact that we have noticed this nigh-infinitecimal phenomenon and (apparently) figured it out well enough to respond testifies that our medical-tech watchers and responders are excellent. Maybe too sensitive--the resources that were spent on establishing that these deaths were all vaginal-misoprostol rather than oral-misoprostol could probably have saved more lives if it had been spent on a question that affects a greater number of people. Walkers for patients with balance disorders like Parkinson's, that's a good way to spend health-care money. By the way, when FDA approves a regimen, the approval of the drug is meaningful--it allows you to prescribe the drug--but the specific regimen is just a guideline. Obviously approval for oral use does not imply approval for intravenous use but the difference between oral and intravaginal (and for that matter subcutaneous) is not considered meaningful. Also the guidelines about what conditions you can use the drug to treat are not binding. Much of the often-invoked but never defined "standard of care" consists of off-label uses.

July 11, 2009 | url

JuanC said:

'Epidemiology 101' response illustrates what's fatally wrong with the pro-abortion position Operation Counterstrike notes that the maternal deaths caused by mifepristone regimens are "just about nothing" and "statistical noise". However, each of those deaths was a real person- somebody's wife, sister, daughter, or friend. Far from "just about nothing". Much more than "statistical noise". It's sad and eye-opening to see an attitude like Operation Counterstrike's, but it's also not surprising. That type of view is the logical extension of the mentality that says we can kill our unborn children for convenience sake, that human life has no intrinsic, inalienable value, and that humans should onlylive if others will it to be so.

July 13, 2009

smartgirl06 said:

Wow. 'Epidemiology 101/Operation Counterstrike' is not human. It is shocking the quick responses that go around boards all over this country. Responses of ignorance. With every death there are mental status changes, a warm human who moans as the pain and other feelings kick in from the changes their body forces on them as the shock they are feeling from infection spreads. Their vital signs change, they lose consciousness, the may come back into consciousness, or not. Sometimes there is family at the bedside, or no time for them to be contacted so the person dies alone, forced to go through all the feelings/fears THEY DO HAVE prior to dying. What is their last thought--was there something they wanted to say, or change before their unconsciousness turned into death? Did planned parenthood care? What the hell is going on w/people NOT thinking deeper than as if watching a movie, waiting for it to be over so they can put in another. That's wha society has become with regard to FEELING someone else's pain or circumstance. It is all momentary until the next scene comes and the audience is moved to another part of the story. People's real lives have feeling you can't get from a screen. The MANY women who used these drugs at the direct order of planned parenthood is no different than your Dr. telling you to take a drug INCORRECTLY. IT IS AGAINST THE LAW. How is it some people can't get that? To what end will they try to defend the indefensible? Women have a responsibility--STOP having unprotected sex. Think of what that can turn into. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!!!! Babies die from selfishness. People don't feel what they are not forced to deal with. Planned parenthood survives w/ a "hands off/no judgement" approach, lest they be put out of the business of baby-killing and taking tax dollars for it.

July 13, 2009

smartgirl06 said:

Epidemiology's response is full of holes Epidemiology--You do not know what you are talking about. When you say there is no real difference between routes of administration, your dangerous ignorance shows. And the fact that you would write it in a forum shows you to be stupid as well. You cannot give a drug any way you think to. You can kill someone, damage the route given, i.e. cause the patient harm. Remember "First do no harm?" Route of administration has everything to do with how quick the medication is able to begin working and what systems will be in play getting where it needs to go. You are careless in abundance with your post. You are rouge in your thinking and sound like you're repeating something overheard from a second-hand conversation given by a zealot trying to cover their course of action vs. acknowledging the real truths surrounding it by understanding what was required of them in the first place. And you can't compare where funding should go. You are so blatant and obviously care nothing about what this article stands for in the first place. The resources given to this necessary follow up study--SINCE PEOPLE DIED--were NECESSARY. You don't live in a real world of understanding. I hope you never administer any drug to anyone except yourself. Try pushing aspirin, an asthma inhaler, or pepto bismol, into yourself via a suppository or through an IV and let us know what you come up with.

July 13, 2009