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CV NEWS FEED // Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said Wednesday that he has ordered a top-down review of the abortion drug mifepristone in light of “alarming” research showing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved pill does far more harm to women than previously reported.
The latest research is “alarming,” Kennedy said during a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “And clearly it indicates at the very least the [FDA] label should be changed.”
“I’ve asked Marty Makary, who’s the director of the FDA, to do a complete review and to report back,” Kennedy added.
As Dr. Susan Berry reported for CatholicVote April 28, a “bombshell study” by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) “revealed nearly 11% of women experience severe or life-threatening complications after an abortion via the drug mifepristone – a rate that is 22 times higher than indicated on the drug’s label approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
EPPC “analyzed 865,727 mifepristone abortions that occurred between 2017 and 2023, a number that is ‘28 times larger than in all FDA clinical trials combined,’” Berry reported.
CatholicVote reported the following day that the Catholic advocacy group had “joined a coalition of over 30 pro-life organizations Tuesday in urging the Trump administration to evaluate the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, immediately following the release of a new study revealing serious health risks.”
The coalition letter argued “that mifepristone—used in over 60% of US abortions—was irresponsibly approved in 2000 and continues to harm women.”
“We respectfully ask that you take swift action to protect the rights of states to defend unborn children, in keeping with your campaign pledge to return the issue of abortion to the states,” the letter read, calling on the administration to stand firm “as a defender of the weak and vulnerable.”