Ru 486 Drug

An abortion clinic surrendered its license Wednesday amid allegations that a woman delivered a nearly full-term stillborn baby after a staff member gave her an abortion-inducing drug without a doctor present. Summit Medical Center in Birmingham has been closed since the Alabama Department of Public Health suspended its operations May 17, citing numerous violations of health rules, said Rick Harris, director of the state agency's Bureau of Health Provider Standards.

A sustained dose of RU-486, the so-called abortion pill, prevented breast cancer tumors in mice with a genetic mutation that made them highly susceptible to the disease, researchers at UC Irvine report today. The mutation in a gene known as BRCA1 leads to uncontrolled cell growth in the mammary glands. About one in 800 women inherits a version of BRCA1 that is damaged in some way, and the National Cancer Institute estimates that up to 80% of such women will develop breast cancer.

Two more women who took the abortion pill RU-486 have died, according to federal drug regulators who are investigating whether the same rare infection that caused four earlier deaths was responsible. In announcing the two additional cases Friday, the Food and Drug Administration issued an alert urging doctors and patients to follow approved directions for the drug -- which is used in combination with another medication, misoprostol -- and to look for warning signs warranting immediate attention.

An abortion clinic surrendered its license Wednesday amid allegations that a woman delivered a nearly full-term stillborn baby after a staff member gave her an abortion-inducing drug without a doctor present. Summit Medical Center in Birmingham has been closed since the Alabama Department of Public Health suspended its operations May 17, citing numerous violations of health rules, said Rick Harris, director of the state agency's Bureau of Health Provider Standards.

In an effort to "prevent the impending destruction of women's rights" and to make a French abortion pill available to American women, Los Angeles activist Peg Yorkin said Wednesday that she is donating $10 million to the Feminist Majority Foundation, which she co-founded. The gift, which Yorkin said represents roughly one-quarter of her personal assets, was hailed by Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal as "the largest gift in women's rights history."

Sometimes the compass shifts, and life takes a detour that lasts forever. More than 40 years ago, Lawrence Lader moved from hotshot magazine writer to reproductive rights activist. He became a quiet pillar of an often noisy movement, little known outside the pro-choice community and not always widely recognized within it. Betty Friedan, self-described "mother of the women's movement," once labeled Lader "the father of abortion rights."

Clearing a path for revolutionary changes in the way American women undergo abortions, a federal advisory committee Friday recommended that the Food and Drug Administration approve RU-486, the controversial French abortion pill, for use in the United States. An overwhelming majority of the eight-member panel endorsed the decision that the drug is safe and effective and that its benefits outweigh its risks.

Warning that the abortion pill is under sneak attack, a national abortion rights group has sued to block a Michigan law that it claims would effectively ban physicians from terminating pregnancies with RU-486. Under the law, which takes effect next month, women seeking to end a pregnancy first must review a description--written by the state--of the medical procedure that will be used.

The Supreme Court refused Friday to order U.S. officials to return abortion pills confiscated from a pregnant Berkeley woman, thereby leaving intact a government ban on importing the French drug that induces abortion. For 29-year-old Leona Benten, the high court's action forecloses the chance that she will be able to end her pregnancy by taking the 600-milligram dose of RU486. The drug is only effective during the first eight weeks of pregnancy, a threshold she will cross this weekend.

Annie, a 29-year-old secretary in an import-export business, already had two young children from a marriage that ended in divorce. "If I have another child, I want it to be with someone I have truly chosen," she said resolutely. "It's the mother who takes charge of the children." Chantal, 23, a dressmaker from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, said she did not know her boyfriend well enough to have his baby.

Health officials said Monday they have ruled out the abortion pill RU-486 in connection with one of two recent deaths of women who had taken the drug. The second death remains under investigation. The one death was unrelated to either abortion or RU-486, the Food and Drug Administration said. One of the women died weeks after her abortion, but it was not immediately clear which one. The woman whose death is still under investigation showed symptoms of infection.

Two more women who took the abortion pill RU-486 have died, according to federal drug regulators who are investigating whether the same rare infection that caused four earlier deaths was responsible. In announcing the two additional cases Friday, the Food and Drug Administration issued an alert urging doctors and patients to follow approved directions for the drug -- which is used in combination with another medication, misoprostol -- and to look for warning signs warranting immediate attention.

Four Illinois pharmacists have sued Walgreen Co., saying the drugstore chain wrongly fired them for refusing to dispense the "morning-after" emergency contraceptive pill. The pharmacists are represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. The lawsuit, filed in Madison County, Ill.

Government researchers investigating the deaths of four California women who contracted infections after taking RU-486 and another drug to induce abortion have found that the risk of infection from the controversial drug combination is "low," according to a study released today. The scientists also found nothing to link the deaths of the four women, who were prescribed the drugs at different clinics in Northern and Southern California between 2003 and 2005.

The family of an Orange County woman who died after taking RU-486 and a follow-up drug has sued Danco Laboratories, the distributor of the so-called abortion pill, charging that the company did not sufficiently warn women of potential risks. Hoa Thuy Tran, a 21-year-old teaching student from Fountain Valley, died in 2003 after taking the two drugs to end a pregnancy. She is one of four U.S.

Health officials are investigating whether there are any links in the cases of four California women -- at least two in Los Angeles County -- who have died since 2003 of massive infection after taking the so-called abortion pill, RU-486, and a follow-up drug.

Mifepristone blocks the effects of progesterone, a hormone necessary to sustain pregnancy. Without progesterone, the fertilized egg detaches from the uterine wall, the cervix softens and opens and the uterine lining begins to break down. Two days after taking it, women are given the drug misoprostol, an anti-ulcer drug that is also known by the brand name Cytotec. In small doses, misoprostol causes contractions in the uterus, helping to expel the embryo.

Psychic Makes Baby Vanish Before Birth --Front-page headline in the Sun, a tabloid PRO RU-486 is the most exciting new drug we've had in fertility control since the development of the birth control pill three decades ago. It opens entire new vistas, with benefits far beyond reproductive medicine, ranging from treatment of endometriosis to breast cancer." Dr. David A. Grimes USC School of Medicine CON "There will be serious resistance to RU-486.

Gov. George E. Pataki plans to veto legislation that would allow women to buy the "morning-after" pill without a prescription, a decision described by abortion rights advocates as "sheer political expediency" to build conservative support for a 2008 presidential run. State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long said he was pleased with the Republican governor's decision.

A pill used to terminate pregnancy that was implicated in the death of a California woman will add warnings linking RU-486 to the risk of serious bacterial infection. Holly Patterson died Sept. 17, 2003, of septic shock caused by inflammation of the uterus. The 18-year-old died weeks after taking RU-486 to terminate an unplanned pregnancy. Antiabortion activists seized upon her death in their campaign against these pills, including Mifeprex, a product of Danco Laboratories.