RU-486 - Leave an Advanced Directive
The dream pill. Have your fun, pop a pill, and all your worries can be flushed away! An idea as great as the hangover pill.
Or is it?
"Seven women have died during the past five years, including four in California, after taking the abortion pill RU-486. On May 11th, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health gathered in Atlanta, Georgia, partly to discuss the dangers of this pill, and whether women taking it are more susceptible to deadly infection.
Researchers believe that a bacterium, Clostridium sordellii, and not the RU-486 drug, directly caused these women's deaths. However, Dr. Ralph Miech, a pharmacology professor at Brown University, has another idea. He suggests that the abortion pill negatively affects the immune system. He believes that these women died after taking the RU-486 pill because their bodies could no longer keep the dangerous bacterium in check.
The women died from toxic shock caused by a Clostridium sordellii bacterium infection. C. sordellii exists in the vaginas of about one in every 1000 women without causing much harm.
Several doctors argued that the danger from the drug is relatively low, and that it only has a death risk of about 1 in 100,000." This seems like pretty bad odds for something thats completely voluntary, and avoidable. According to the 2000 census, there were 143.4 million women in the U. S. at that time. According to the above doctors, that would mean that 1,433 women that used RU-486 wiould die. And this appears to be acceptable to them, as they feel that this is a relatively low number. But who's going to decide who those women will be?
I think it would be a novel idea to require pharmacies to include a Personal Will & Advanced Directive Kit with each prescription of RU-486. This is a convenience pill, and not a pill required for a health problem. You should get informed about it, and any medication you take. Make an informed decision, not an emotional one.
For a personal story of this pill's use, go here:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B2B35612D
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