In answer to Andrea’s moratorium on slamming the feminists, I thought that I would mention another group of wonderful women that I had the honour of meeting in 2007 at a UN Conference on the Status of Women. Concerned Women for America are well known and do some really great work.
Assuming that there is no moratorium on slamming the killer pills (aka RU-486) that the CMAJ is suggesting we legalize here in Canada, I went back into the archives to dig up some of their work. This was following the legalization of RU-486 in the US. Here is a snippet:
Concerned Women for America, along with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Christian Medical Association, filed a Citizen Petition with the FDA on August 20, 2002. This legal document outlines the numerous violations the FDA committed in its approval of RU-486 and how these violations resulted in the injury and death of women.
- RU-486 was approved under a special “restricted distribution” approval process known as “Subpart H,” reserved only for drugs that treat “severe or life-threatening illnesses.” …drugs approved under Subpart H treat fatal diseases, such as cancer or AIDS, and can have serious side effects —considered acceptable when the alternative is death.
- The FDA waived the “pediatric rule” with no explanation. Any drug given to adolescents must be tested on adolescents. Teenagers’ bodies go through rapid hormonal maturation; their bodies are different from adults. No one under 18 (or over 35) was allowed to participate in the RU-486 clinical trials. Yet the FDA did not limit the age of females to whom RU-486 could be given.
- Complications reported to the FDA demonstrate that RU-486 is a serious threat to the health and safety of women. These include two fatalities and 20 other near-fatal complications including a heart attack, two cases of systemic bacterial infection in 15-year olds and several hospitalizations for hemorrhaging. The FDA and Danco sent a letter to physicians in April 2002 warning of the complications reported since the FDA approved RU-486. This alone would cause an ordinary drug to be removed from the market immediately.
For the sake of brevity, I only include three of the seven very serious violations that the document outlined. To see the complete list go here.
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