Two more women's deaths have been linked to RU-486, the combination of two drugs used to induce abortion

* Two more women's deaths have been linked to RU-486, the combination of two drugs used to induce abortion. It may be that the fatalities are the result of the way Planned Parenthood clinics have been using the drugs rather than inherent dangers from the drugs themselves. And Planned Parenthood has rushed to assure us that RU-486 is statistically safer for women than continued pregnancy or surgical abortion.

That may be so. But the FDA hasn't taken that calm, cool approach when other drugs have been implicated in deaths. Palladone caused no deaths, but was merely suspected of posing a risk of death when combined with alcohol. It was pulled from the market last year. Marketing of Tysabri was suspended last year when it was linked to one death, even though many MS sufferers have no good substitutes for the drug. (The FDA is on the verge of letting it back on the market.) Elidel cream was forced to carry a cancer warning based on animal studies: again, no deaths. The FDA has merely issued a rather wimpy advisory about RU-486. Why the double standard? Why the lack of outcry from the usual "public-health advocates"? Those are the questions we would ask, if we did not already know the answers.

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