RFK Jr Orders Review of Abortion Pill After Alarming New Analysis
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on May 14 that he's ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to complete a review of the abortion pill mifepristone.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), during a hearing in Washington, highlighted an analysis of insurance claims that
'I think the new data ... is alarming, and clearly it indicates that at the very least, the label should be changed,' Kennedy said.
The health secretary said he told Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA's commissioner, to do a complete review of the data and report back.
Hawley
The FDA
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Makary said during his confirmation hearing in March that once he entered office, he would review the data on mifepristone.
'I have no preconceived plans to make changes to the mifepristone policy,' he also said, in response to Democrat senators who urged him to acknowledge studies that they said show the pill to be safe and effective. One paper from 2013, for example,
During a summit in April, Makary said that he had no plans to take action to limit the availability of mifepristone.
'There is an ongoing set of data that is coming into FDA on mifepristone,' he said. 'So if the data suggests something or tells us that there's a real signal, we can't promise we're not going to act on that data.'
Four days later, the Ethics and Public Policy Center published the analysis of insurance claims, which the authors
In trials for mifepristone, less than 0.5 percent of women who took the drug experienced a serious adverse reaction, such as sepsis, according to
Kennedy had told senators during one of his confirmation hearings that President Donald Trump asked him to study the safety of mifepristone.
'He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it. Whatever he does, I will implement those policies,' he said at the time.
Some groups and senators, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), have also asked the FDA to reinstate limitations on mifepristone that were removed during the Biden administration, including the requirement that the drug be dispensed in person.
After Hawley asked Kennedy on Wednesday about that aspect, Kennedy said that Makary would make a recommendation.
'I feel that the policy changes will ultimately go through the White House, through President Trump,' Kennedy said.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, a nonprofit that advocates for abortion access, was among the organizations critical of Kennedy's remarks.
'President Trump ... should not be making decisions about our healthcare,' it
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