FDA to Make Decision on RU-486

Article

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to decide by Saturday whether it will approve the abortion pill, RU-486. It would be the first alternative to surgical abortion approved in the US.

The drug, sold in Europe and elsewhere for more than a decade, allows women to terminate pregnancy within seven weeks of their last period. Opponents of legal abortion have argued that the pill could be more dangerous than surgical abortions, causing severe bleeding in about 2% of women and incomplete abortions in 5% to 8%, requiring women to have surgical abortions to complete the procedure.

The drug's maker, the Roussel Ucalf of Hoechst A.G., decided against marketing approval in the US fearing protests. However, in 1994, the company gave the drug's patent to a nonprofit group, the Population Council. Six months ago, Danco Laboratories, a company formed to market the drug for the Population Council, submitted its application to the FDA. For more information visit www.fda.gov.

Recent Videos
Lindsay K. Weir, MPH, CIC, Lead Infection Preventionist/Infection Preventionist III
•	Rebecca (Bartles) Crapanzano-Sigafoos, DrPH, MPH, CIC, FAPIC (corresponding author), executive director of APIC’s Center for Research, Practice, and Innovation, and lead author of the study.
Infection Control Today's Infection Intel: Staying Ahead With Company Updates and Product Innovations.
COVID-19 presentations at IDWeek in Las Angeles, California by Invivyd.   (Adobe Stock 333039083 by Production Perig)
Long COVID and Other Post-Viral Syndromes
Meet Jenny Hayes, MSN, RN, CIC, CAIP, CASSPT.
Infection Control Today Editorial Advisory Board: Fibi Attia, MD, MPH, CIC.
Andrea Thomas, PhD, DVM, MSc, BSc, director of epidemiology at BlueDot
mpox   (Adobe Stock 924156809 by Andreas Prott)
Meet Alexander Sundermann, DrPH, CIC, FAPIC.
Related Content