Mifepristone: More Than An Abortion Pill – A Lifesaver for Women (fda caved to gestational slavers)
(this drug is subject to restrictions that few other drugs have, despite evidence of its life-saving properties. but, we are told, there is NO war on women!!)
Mifepristone: More Than An Abortion Pill – A Lifesaver for Women
Feminist Majority Foundation led the campaign to win FDA approval of mifepristone for early medical abortion from 1989 until victory on September 28, 2000. Today some 40% of all early abortions in the United States are performed simply by women taking medication by mouth with no surgical procedure needed. For millions of women who need to or want to end their pregnancy, it has provided a preferred method and is truly a medical advancement.
But the FMF believed then and still believes that the drug can and should be further researched to achieve additional important medical advancements. In the meantime, it should be widely available to treat life-saving medical and mental health conditions now that disproportionately impact women.
Decades of evidence-based, scientific studies indicate that mifepristone, an anti-hormone drug, could be an important treatment for a variety of gynecologic and obstetric conditions. It has been shown to be effective in easing the delivery of at-term babies and is widely used in European countries for this purpose. Moreover, other scientific research has indicated its potential in treating some types of breast, ovarian and uterine tumors as well as psychiatric conditions such as bi-polar disorder, generalized depression and post-partum depression, but because the FDA (for what is believe to be political, not medical safety reasons) severely restricts access to the drug for even doctors and researchers, such research concerning potential usage has been limited.
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Even though the scientific literature shows that mifepristone could be very helpful for some types of breast cancers, ovarian cancers, uterine fibroids, and other tumors disproportionally impacting women, doctors cannot provide this drug to their patients in an off-label manner- because of the restrictive use the FDA agreed to in order to appease the anti-abortion opponents who threatened its approval. FMF believes that restrictions around accessing mifepristone should be removed so that its full therapeutic value can be thoroughly explored.
FMF understood that even with FDA approval of mifepristone for medical abortion, its severely restricted access would limit its potential to treat patients with life-threatening medical and psychiatric conditions. When no other professional medical organization stepped in to help patients access this novel anti-hormone medication, FMF took the bold step of entering into an arrangement with the Food and Drug Administration to develop a “Mifepristone Compassionate Use program”. For over 15 years, our Compassionate Use program has been the only way for doctors to access this drug for their patients with life-threatening conditions who had exhausted all other forms of traditional treatments. FMF also partnered with the Gynecological Oncology Group, the country’s foremost gynecologic cancer research group (funded by the National Cancer Institute) in conducting a small study on mifepristone for ovarian cancer.
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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/09/28/mifepristone-more-than-an-abortion-pill-a-lifesaver-for-women/