Abortion Pill

NEW YORK -- A New York-based abortion-rights group has produced a copy of the controversial French abortion pill and plans to begin testing it on women here to pressure the manufacturer of the drug to bring it to the United States."

Last week, a federal district judge in New York ruled that girls younger than 17 should be allowed to purchase the Plan B contraceptive pill over the counter. Unlike the Obama administration, Judge Edward Korman got this one right. The 2011 decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to restrict access for younger girls not only denied them a safe and legal means to prevent unwanted pregnancy but ignored all scientific evidence that supported its access. Emergency contraceptive pills, commonly known as "Plan B," are drugs that work to prevent pregnancy if taken shortly after sexual intercourse.

Boston -- Up in New Hampshire, where mud season is giving way to black flies, the legislature is getting ready to flash the famous Granite State streak of independence. This conservative Republican territory, known for its presidential primaries and its lack-of-tax structure, is expected to pass a resolution in support of the abortion pill. It will offer the state as an American test site for RU486.The legislators don't expect to see a team flying in from Europe to set up a lab in downtown Concord the morning after the vote.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for partly sunny skies with breezy conditions and a high temperature around 41 degrees. It is expected to be partly cloudy tonight with a low temperature around 27 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our interactive traffic map for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Scarlet fever identified at Baltimore elementary school : At least one student at George Washington Elementary in southwest Baltimore has been diagnosed with scarlet fever, according to the city health department.

WASHINGTON -- The French company that makes the abortion pill RU-486 has agreed to license the drug to a U.S. contraceptive research group so it can find a manufacturer in the United States, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday.The commissioner, Dr. David Kessler, said that after a meeting yesterday in Rockville, Md., Edouard Sakiz, president of the French company, Roussel-Uclaf, agreed to license the drug and the technology to make it to the Population Council, a not-for-profit research organization based in New York City.

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators studying whether the abortion pill RU-486 was responsible for the deaths of two women who took the drug ruled out one of the cases yesterday. The Food and Drug Administration did not indicate which of the deaths had been ruled out. Cindy Summers, a spokeswoman for RU-486 manufacturer Danco Laboratories, said it was a death that took place several weeks after the abortion. The FDA is continuing to investigate the cause of the other death, which came several days after RU-486 was administered.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration told the Supreme Court yesterday that it is only doing what Congress wants in keeping the abortion pill, RU-486, out of this country, and argued that no American woman should be allowed to defy Congress' choice.Stung by a federal judge's accusation that the government acted illegally and bowed to political pressure by banning all imports of the French-made pill three years ago, the administration fought back in a 13-page legal brief filed with the justices.

The so-called abortion pill from France, RU-486, is still illegal in this country, but a New York gynecologist has used two drugs already on the market -- but approved for other purposes -- to perform more than 100 abortions without surgery.Richard Hausknecht, a longtime abortion-rights crusader, has been criticized by medical researchers for using the method in his private practice before its safety and efficacy are determined in clinical trials, which are under way in three U.S. cities.

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- The rare bacterium that caused the massive infection that killed 18-year-old Holly Patterson of Livermore in 2003 has been linked to all four California women who died after taking the RU-486 abortion pill. The recent finding has led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to plan a scientific meeting to discuss what many view as a medical mystery, FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza confirmed. "We will further explore the issues and outstanding questions we don't have answers to right now," she said.

WASHINGTON -- The House voted yesterday to bar the Food and Drug Administration from spending federal money to test, develop or approve any drug -- including the French abortion pill RU-486 -- that would chemically induce abortion.By a vote of 223-202, lawmakers amended the fiscal 1999 agriculture spending bill to include the ban, then overwhelmingly approved the $56 billion agriculture bill. Thirty-five Democrats joined 188 Republicans in voting for the anti-abortion measure.Advocates of abortion rights swiftly attacked the move, although even the sponsor of the amendment, Rep. Tom Coburn, conceded it was unlikely to be approved by the Senate.

WASHINGTON -- Republican legislators urged federal regulators to halt sales of RU-486 yesterday during a congressional hearing designed to draw attention to five deaths linked to use of the abortion pill and a companion drug. "There is a serious problem with RU-486, and failing to address this problem by disguising it, ignoring it, minimizing it or causing confusion is a shameful failure," said Rep. Mark E. Souder, an Indiana Republican. Souder, chairman of the drug policy subcommittee that held the hearing, and Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Republican from Ohio, criticized the Food and Drug Administration for refusing to withdraw RU-486 despite the deaths and other side effects.

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators studying whether the abortion pill RU-486 was responsible for the deaths of two women who took the drug ruled out one of the cases yesterday. The Food and Drug Administration did not indicate which of the deaths had been ruled out. Cindy Summers, a spokeswoman for RU-486 manufacturer Danco Laboratories, said it was a death that took place several weeks after the abortion. The FDA is continuing to investigate the cause of the other death, which came several days after RU-486 was administered.

WASHINGTON -- 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 yesterday, 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, and to look for warning signs or symptoms warranting immediate attention, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or abdominal pain.

WASHINGTON -- Government investigators studying the deaths of four California women who took the RU-486 abortion pill played down the risks to other users yesterday and said the fatal infection that caused the deaths wasn't particular to women taking the drug. In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the investigators described the risk of the Clostridium sordellii infection as "low" and said it could occur after a woman has taken the pill, undergone a surgical abortion or given birth.

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- The rare bacterium that caused the massive infection that killed 18-year-old Holly Patterson of Livermore in 2003 has been linked to all four California women who died after taking the RU-486 abortion pill. The recent finding has led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to plan a scientific meeting to discuss what many view as a medical mystery, FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza confirmed. "We will further explore the issues and outstanding questions we don't have answers to right now," she said.

BOSTON - If you're looking for the science that matters most in Washington these days, it's political science. The answer to everything from global warming to mercury in the water seems to be found in the dubious data of ideology. Nevertheless, for one brief moment it looked as if the Food and Drug Administration actually was going to weigh the evidence on an objective scale. In December, an advisory panel voted 24-3 to recommend that emergency contraception be sold over the counter and without a prescription.

WASHINGTON -- A European abortion pill and its chemical cousins show promise for treating a variety of medical conditions and should be aggressively studied for possible use in the United States, says an expert panel.The panel also urged yesterday rapid submission to U.S. authorities of existing European clinical data on the use of the pill, RU-486, for first-trimester abortions in France, Sweden and Britain.The study panel said the European experience has shown RU-486 to be a "safe and efficacious medical treatment for early pregnancy termination."

WASHINGTON -- Abortion rights advocates in Congress have stepped up their efforts to overturn a U.S. government ban on importation of the controversial French abortion pill RU-486, noting that it also may be helpful in the treatment of such life-threatening illnesses as breast cancer.The battleground shifted to a House subcommittee hearing, where medical authorities testified yesterday that the refusal of the Food and Drug Administration to allow RU-486 into the country was based more on the anti-abortion politics of the Bush administration than on scientific judgments.

Last Wednesday afternoon, a California teen-ager died at a hospital in Pleasonton, Calif., days after taking prescription pills to abort her early pregnancy. The circumstances surrounding her death are unclear and an autopsy is under way. But battle lines are already being drawn. Opponents of abortion say the death of Holly Patterson, 18, shows why the abortion pills are too dangerous to remain on the market, while abortion providers say that the death, while tragic, shows no such thing.