RU-486

[Guest guest]

I've been so swamped lately I haven't had the time to report on the latest about RU-486 and thought an update was in order.

As of October 22, 1999, the FY2000 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that contained House Amendment 142 as a rider to block all " abortion inducing drugs " was signed into public law. Clinical trials of RU-486 for a wide variety of diseases -- including uterine fibroids and endometriosis -- have come to a complete halt due to lack of availability of this drug. No one is manufacturing it in the U.S. and even the French company that is manufacturing this product is in short supply. Because it has shown efficacy in some terminal diseases (including cancerous brain tumors), compassionate use protocols are being followed in allowing a small number of patients to continue to receive this drug.

After reading the majority of the research reports written to date on this drug, it is truly a travesty that anti-abortionists would refuse to remove the blinders and allow research to move forward on this one. Over twenty years of struggling and the manufacturers who have attempted to produce this drug are ready to throw in the towel the whole world over. Sad. Truly sad. This drug has promise.

Considering that controlling uterine fibroids and other diseases of the female reproductive system are all about controlling/balancing hormones in a woman's body -- will we ever move forward on this issue as long as anti-abortionists perceive some threat to a *potential* fetus?

And just where do all those anti-abortionists who so vocally removed this drug from the realm of research stand on the issue of exponentially astounding unnecessary hysterectomies... you can't have a drug that might potentially damage a fetus.... but you CAN have your uterus removed....

Carla Dionnemailto:cdionne@...http://www.uterinefibroids.commember, /list/uterinefibroids