Sunday, December 04, 2005

The tip of the iceberg?

From Newsday:
Dr. Donna J. Harrison, who chairs the Mifeprex subcommittee of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, blames the deaths on medical abortion.

"When you have five deaths and they're all the same organism, that's like lightning striking the same place five times," she said.

Harrison, of Berrien Center, Mich., has been reviewing 840 reports of adverse events filed with the FDA. She asserted that the risks from taking the drug are higher than thought because many serious problems go unreported.

....

Scientists at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with health officials in California, began their investigation last summer after learning of one death. They identified three other deaths in the United States associated with medical abortion, but did not find any others that followed use of the abortion pill.

Interesting points here:

1. Talk about lightening striking the same place five times -- four of those five were in the same small geographic area, and three of the four were in NAF or PP facilities. Why is the cluster happening in cream-of-the-crop facilities, and not in seedy mills?

2. Dr. Harrison thinks many serious problems are going unreported. Do ya think? When the reported cases were in high-end facilities, that possibility ought to leap out at you.

3. The investigation started with one reported death, and uncovered three more. How many more will be uncovered when people start seriously turning over rocks?

I'd like to know what investigative methods uncovered the three additional LA-area deaths.

And I wonder -- is there anything about an RU-486 abortion that would show up on autopsy to make it clear that this was an induced abortion, not a miscarriage? If the woman choses chemical abortion so that the abortion will look like a miscarriage, will there be any way for public health officials to find out what really happened?

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