Former Vice President Mike Pence’s think tank is urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release records on the abortion drug mifepristone’s approval, accusing the agency of using “illegal shortcuts” in 2000, The Daily Signal reported July 25.
In a July 25 letter, the think tank, Advancing American Freedom, claimed that the FDA under previous administrations had ignored key safety protocols and approved a drug with “a much more dangerous event profile than publicly acknowledged.”
The think tank pointed to a recent Ethics and Public Policy Center study, which found that nearly 11% of women who take mifepristone suffer serious complications. This rate is 22 times higher than what the FDA-approved label indicates, CatholicVote previously reported.
The letter revives a nearly year-old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking documents related to three congressional investigations from 1996. After the FDA failed to respond, the group sued to compel disclosure. It now says it hopes the documents will be released without litigation, according to The Daily Signal.
While the FDA’s website continues to call the drug “safe and effective,” pro-life researchers argue its approval was rushed and that the agency has ignored mounting evidence of risk. Mifepristone is now used in more than half of all US abortions.
In a July 23 interview with POLITICO, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said he has “no preconceived plans” to change current policy on mifepristone but will “continue to look at the data” and hear concerns about coercion.
In May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced he ordered a top-down review of the drug’s safety and said, “at the very least the [FDA] label should be changed.”
Earlier this month, CatholicVote and hundreds of other pro-life organizations called on Kennedy and Makary to reinstate safety protocols rolled back under the Biden administration. Those changes allowed abortion pills to be mailed and prescribed via telehealth.
