The Trump administration is reviewing the safety protocols surrounding the abortion pill mifepristone as conservative states continue to restrict access, the Hill reported Wednesday.
In a letter sent earlier in September but published this week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary stated the agency may change the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy requirements due to recent studies questioning mifepristone’s safety. They added that HHS will conduct its own review of the drug.
Several states have made it easier to challenge those who bypass laws to get abortion pills. Texas now allows private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, ships or supplies abortion drugs for up to $100,000, though recipients using the pills themselves are exempt. In August, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent cease-and-desist letters to several organizations, ordering them to stop the advertising, sale, and shipment of abortion-inducing drugs into Texas.
“Texas will not tolerate the murdering of innocent life through illegal drug trafficking,” said Paxton. The Attorney General’s action stems from two recent cases in Texas where individuals allegedly obtained abortion-inducing drugs illegally with the assistance of certain organizations. In one lawsuit, a man is accused of using the drugs to poison his girlfriend, resulting in the loss of the pregnancy and sending her to the hospital.
The FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000 for abortion up to seven weeks of pregnancy, but then made a series of changes in 2016 and 2021. Those changes included increasing the gestational age at which mifepristone can be used to up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, allowing the medication to be mailed to patients, lowering the dosage, approving telehealth prescribing and permitting providers other than physicians to prescribe the drug.
Kennedy and Makary have not explicitly called for the drug’s removal, but they referenced a study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) to support reconsidering the Biden administration’s changes. They noted that safety measures for women using mifepristone have been greatly reduced.
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