A common bacterial infection is causing deaths in pregnant women. Since 2000, ten women have died from infections caused by the C. sordellii bacterium. Eight of the women had recently given birth vaginally or by Caesarean section and two had had miscarriages. An additional death was reported due to an infection in a woman during her menstrual period.
This is more than double the number of women who have died of infection after taking mifepristone.
In the reports on the risks associated with RU-486, the risk is not the issue. These pills are safer than pregnancy. The press should admit that it’s talking about statistics as a cover for the moral issue. Deaths from RU-486 make headlines because people are opposed to abortion, not because of concern for maternal health.
This is yet another example of why politics and religion need to stay the hell away from science. By committing the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, anti-women crusaders have forced health professionals to waste time looking for dangers where dangers don’t exist, meanwhile potentially missing the real causes of women’s deaths.
If you actually care about women’s health, then let the experts do their job.
NB: This post is not about abortion; nor should comments be. Thank you.
Exactly right. If we used this statistic politically, we could argue against Costello’s push for women to have more children on the grounds that pregnancy poses elevated health risks. Great post.
Heh. “Costello budget: danger to women”.
That’s it. Science has confirmed me in my lesbianism. Just sayin…
It still amazes me how it’s apparently AOK that the pursuit of the right to an erection has led to many more deaths in men taking Viagra, (and the experts said alright we don’t give so much of it and don’t give it to blokes with thisthatandtheother conditions), but those deaths never led to the inherent wisdom of choosing to pursue the right to erections being questioned in Parliament.
Yep.
Has anyone done any research on the health dangers of TEH BRAS?
Our sixties sisters may have been onto something…
Kim: Yes, in fact new agers like my biodynamic, new age, herbal cousin claim that underwire bras cause cancer by conducting electrical currents or some nonsense. I’m sure there’s stuff on it, but I couldn’t be arsed…
She needs to run for Parliament. Or get a job advising Tony Abbott. Or something.
Well that has just put the arguement for science to find a way for men to carry pregnancies back decades.
Kim, TEH UNDERWIRES are in fact evil when breastfeeding as (a) as boobs are enormous, and changing in size every five mintutes or so* bras rarely fit properly which (b) can cause duct blockage, etc, which is TEH BAD.
* much more slight an exaggeration than you’d hope
If you look at the rate of death RU-486 looks more dangerous than pregnancy: If there were 4 deaths after RU-486 use and 8 deaths after delivery as stated in the article (and who knows whether either of those figures is comprehensive), then that’s 4/600,000 for RU-486 and 8/20,000,000 based on about 4 million live births per year in the US. That is pregnancy is about 17 times safer.
I’m not suggesting that those death figures are actually complete enough to draw those conclusions, just pointing out that comparing numbers of deaths rather than rates is useless.
I know, Tom. My point is that so do scientists - and we should let them assess the data rather than trying to force them to focus on a particular drug/ technique for non-scientific reasons.
The data , I think, is FDA data - the research is still ongoing.
I’ll remember that, Zoe my love, should TEH STATE ever allow me to enjoy the joys of pregnancy enormified boobs!
Anna, one point you overlook is that when it comes to prescribing medicine, people usually have the attitude that doctors should “first, do no harm”. In other words, people react differently to catching an illness that has no human causation from one that is suspected of being caused by a prescribed medicine (especially where the medicine was not the only treatment available.) Last week’s 4 Corners (about the teenage suicide where that anti-acne drug was implicated) was a good example.
From this point of view, which I don’t think really deserves criticism, it is entirely appropriate to be looking at RU 486 and its possible role in this infection with some priority. (As I recall it, a pro-choice sounding woman writer had a piece in The Australian last year pointing out that one of the problems with RU486 and infections is that the symptoms of the drug can be hard to differentiate from the first signs of an infection.)
There is probably an overriding wisdom that natural is best and hence RU486 falls in that category. It may also be the case that the fatal bacterium in question may be arising due to our ‘antisepticism’ or perhaps overuse of antibiotics. Interesting here how a favourable approach to abortion can perhaps lead to a more favourable approach to scientific risk of RU486, whereas that may not be the case for say mobile phone tower risk by the same observer, when our view of that science should rationally be the same.
Yes, but we’re talking about side effects, steve. For instance, the fact that a very small number of women will develop septic shock from some contraceptives (which can be deadly or induce gangrene) is not an argument against the prescription of the pill, but rather an argument for doctors to understand well what contra-indications exist for the medication and to take a holistic view of the patient’s health in order to minimise the already very small risk.
And I hasten to add, menstruation being the thing it is, there are lots of other reasons for the pill to be prescribed in order to regulate or otherwise control the menstrual cycle other than for contraceptive purposes.
…like for controling PCOS
http://www.4woman.gov/faq/pcos.htm
Yep.
Btw - I had a feeling chicks talking about menstrual cycles might be a thread killer for the boys.
Kim, I don’t see whether it is a side effect or not is really relevant to Anna’s point. It seems no one understands the possible connection (if it really exists) of RU486 and this infection. Anna’s point seemed to be that the public, and especially the public that has a political agenda to ban the drug, should not call for a proper investigation for this. (Her suggestion is that the doctors and drug companies will get around to that with the priority they see fit.) In fact, I wonder whether it is often public concern, whether political motivated or not, that causes drug companies to more quickly re-investigate the safety of drugs, sometimes with a clear danger being found. Left alone, I don’t know that they have as much motive to act as quickly to do this.
I agree with her to the extent that it is possible that misplaced public concern might drive limited research funds away from one more deserving area to another. But really, this probably happens all the time in medicine (for example, the vaccination research which always seems to come up with no connection.) And you don’t really know whether the concern is misplaced until you do the research. I just don’t think there is much that can be done about this, and (as I said in my original post) a lot has to do with the understandable notion that doctors should do no harm with their treatments.
No, Steve - that is not my point.
My point is that by reporting on “Abortion Pill Dangers”, it is implied that this particular bacterium is linked with mifepristone. I bet that most people who haven’t followed this debate closely would have assumed that this bacterium was caused by mifepristone, as opposed to also being linked to pregnancy/ menstruation, i.e. that it’s a bacterium that’s there in the body already.
Scientists whose job it is to figure these things out would notice a spike in deaths linked with mifepristone if there was one. But instead of being allowed to find the real causes of these deaths, and try to prevent them, the FDA are being made to “prove” mifepristone safe - over and over again.
This harm principle thing is nonsense, and shows that you don’t understand this point. If scientists aren’t allowed to do their job, then how do we know what it is that is causing the harm, and more importantly, how to prevent it? Either because these people don’t understand causality or they don’t care if it helps them in their cause, they are preventing health professionals from doing the job of saving women’s lives. There’s your harm principle.
Anna, I had the impression that it was doctors who noticed a (perhaps very small) “spike” in the incidence of this illness when women use RU486. Whether people who want the drug banned understand how it might cause (or be related to) the infection seems unimportant, and it is certainly not going to affect the way doctors investigate it.
How do you propose that doctors looking at the possible RU486 role is going to be harmful to investigating the infection generally? Seems to me it would likely be all relevant.
And on the issue of safety of the drug overall, it is a valid point that even with higher risk of dying with the this infection, it is overall safer compared to continuing with pregnancy. But the comparison with the death rate from surgical abortion is relevant here too, isn’t it? I am not sure from the links you provided how that compares.