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Australia approves new drug to slow Alzheimer's progression

Australia approves new drug to slow Alzheimer's progression

SBS Australia27-05-2025

This illustration made available by the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health depicts cells in an Alzheimer's affected brain, with abnormal levels of the beta-amyloid protein clumping together to form plaques, brown, that collect between neurons and disrupt cell function. Credit: AP

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ASX health May winners: Sector rises 1.59pc but market volatility remains
ASX health May winners: Sector rises 1.59pc but market volatility remains

News.com.au

timean hour ago

  • News.com.au

ASX health May winners: Sector rises 1.59pc but market volatility remains

The S&P/ASX 200 Health Care Index rose 1.59% in May but remains worst performing sector YTD down 5.65% Morgans healthcare analyst Iain Wilkie said US President Donald Trump's trade and health policies continue to impact sector Lumos up 7.4% in May after several positive announcements including largest single purchase order for point-of-care respiratory test The S&P/ASX 200 Health Care Index rose 1.59% in May, easing from a 2.16% gain in April but still finishing in the green. However, the sector is still not faring well and is the worst-performing year-to-date, down 5.65%. The sector rose in line with broader markets in May with the S&P/ASX 200 gaining 4.20% as fears around escalating US tariffs and a potential US-China trade war eased, bringing relief to global markets. Morgans healthcare analyst Iain Wilkie told Stockhead that 2025 had been very volatile for the sector. "Each month seems to be either up or down and the sector hasn't gained any real momentum at this stage," he said. Wilkie said US President Donald Trump and his trade and health policies were still impacting the sector. "It's just uncertainty which is driving everything at the moment," he said. In May Trump signed an executive order lowering prices of US prescription medicines to bring them in line with other countries, a policy referred to as the 'most favored nation' (MFN). The MFN policy aims to link US drug prices to much lower prices overseas – what Trump referred to as 'equalizing' prices. Trump said the order aimed to cut US pharmaceutical prices from between 59% to 90% and sets price targets for drugmakers to meet within 30 days and warns that further action will be taken if they fail to make 'significant progress' toward those goals. In a release The White House said the US had less than 5% of the world's population and yet funds around three quarters of global pharmaceutical profits. "There's no clear path on what happens next and consequences pharmaceutical companies may face," Wilkie said. "But its just created further uncertainty in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors in an already uncertain time." How ASX biotechs performed in May CODE COMPANY PRICE 1 MONTH RETURN % MARKET CAP DVL Dorsavi Ltd $ 0.02 36.4% 10.97 IVX Invion Ltd $ 0.11 28.0% 8.47 CC5 Clever Culture $ 0.02 26.7% 33.55 VFX Visionflex Group Ltd $ 0.003 25.0% 8.42 NYR Nyrada Inc $ 0.18 24.1% 37.97 IIQ Inoviq Ltd $ 0.55 23.9% 63.07 OSX Osteopore Limited $ 0.02 21.4% 2.95 PEB Pacific Edge $ 0.09 18.7% 60.89 ICR Intelicare Holdings $ 0.01 14.3% 3.89 MVP Medical Developments $ 0.67 11.7% 75.48 PCK Painchek Ltd $ 0.06 11.5% 106.83 IRX Inhalerx Limited $ 0.03 11.1% 6.40 ALA Arovella Therapeutic $ 0.08 11.0% 88.79 IPD Impedimed Limited $ 0.03 10.0% 66.91 LGP Little Green Pharma $ 0.11 10.0% 34.96 ATH Alterity Therapeutics $ 0.01 10.0% 100.40 DOC Doctor Care Anywhere $ 0.11 10.0% 38.50 AGH Althea Group $ 0.03 8.7% 20.56 ALC Alcidion Group Ltd $ 0.09 8.6% 114.15 HMD Heramed Limited $ 0.01 8.3% 11.38 MDR Medadvisor Limited $ 0.09 8.1% 57.48 RAD Radiopharm $ 0.03 8.0% 65.35 LDX Lumos Diagnostics $ 0.03 7.4% 21.71 AVR Anteris Technologies $ 6.29 6.6% 99.41 AFP AFT Pharmaceuticals $ 2.60 6.1% 272.65 ARX Aroa Biosurgery $ 0.49 5.4% 165.55 UCM Uscom Limited $ 0.02 5.3% 4.76 RHC Ramsay Health Care $ 37.90 5.1% 7,049.83 CVB Curvebeam Ai Limited $ 0.09 4.9% 26.97 REG Regis Healthcare Ltd $ 8.13 4.9% 1,242.92 TRI Trivarx Ltd $ 0.01 4.8% 6.79 ACR Acrux Limited $ 0.02 4.3% 9.79 VLS Vita Life Sciences $ 1.89 4.1% 104.29 PGC Paragon Care Limited $ 0.40 3.9% 662.12 NSB Neuroscientific $ 0.06 3.8% 7.95 CMP Compumedics Limited $ 0.28 3.7% 53.82 SPL Starpharma Holdings $ 0.09 3.4% 38.48 NOX Noxopharm Limited $ 0.07 2.9% 21.04 GLH Global Health Ltd $ 0.08 2.6% 4.63 CMB Cambium Bio Limited $ 0.21 2.5% 3.75 PIQ Proteomics Int Lab $ 0.42 2.4% 59.56 SDI SDI Limited $ 0.85 2.4% 99.25 CSX Cleanspace Holdings $ 0.45 2.3% 34.81 ATX Amplia Therapeutics $ 0.05 2.0% 19.40 MVF Monash IVF Group Ltd $ 0.78 2.0% 301.97 IDX Integral Diagnostics $ 2.43 1.9% 870.95 EZZ EZZ Life Science $ 1.54 1.7% 72.65 IMC Immuron Limited $ 0.07 1.5% 15.67 FRE Firebrickpharma $ 0.07 1.5% 15.05 SHL Sonic Healthcare $ 26.62 1.4% 12,821.98 FPH Fisher & Paykel Healthcare $ 34.59 1.4% 6,585.46 IMR Imricor Med Systems $ 1.67 1.2% 541.55 OCC Orthocell Limited $ 1.27 1.2% 307.31 PME Pro Medicus Limited $ 280.98 0.9% 15,316.67 PAR Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals $ 0.31 0.8% 120.72 CTE Cryosite Limited $ 0.75 0.7% 36.61 CHM Chimeric Therapeutic $ 0.00 0.0% 8.06 IXC Invex Therapeutics $ 0.09 0.0% 6.99 COV Cleo Diagnostics $ 0.35 0.0% 27.74 IDT IDT Australia Ltd $ 0.10 0.0% 45.12 EYE Nova EYE Medical Ltd $ 0.13 0.0% 35.52 OCA Oceania Healthc Ltd $ 0.59 0.0% 427.30 EPN Epsilon Healthcare $ 0.02 0.0% 8.29 TD1 Tali Digital Limited $ 0.00 0.0% 3.30 OIL Optiscan Imaging $ 0.13 0.0% 112.77 PER Percheron $ 0.01 0.0% 10.87 OSL Oncosil Medical $ 1.20 0.0% 13.82 BIT Biotron Limited $ 0.00 0.0% 3.32 EOF Ecofibre Limited $ 0.02 0.0% 7.58 TRP Tissue Repair $ 0.19 0.0% 11.19 IBX Imagion Biosys Ltd $ 0.01 0.0% 2.42 SOM SomnoMed Limited $ 0.59 0.0% 129.66 ANR Anatara Ls Ltd $ 0.01 0.0% 1.07 HIQ Hitiq Limited $ 0.02 0.0% 7.57 ADR Adherium Ltd $ 0.01 0.0% 5.31 PSQ Pacific Smiles Grp $ 1.81 -0.3% 291.73 COH Cochlear Limited $ 271.60 -0.4% 17,779.29 CSL CSL Limited $ 247.16 -0.7% 119,986.49 TLX Telix Pharmaceutical $ 25.98 -0.8% 7,546.94 HLS Healius $ 0.88 -0.8% 635.37 ANN Ansell Limited $ 31.19 -0.9% 4,566.62 SNZ Summerset Grp Hldgs $ 10.21 -0.9% 2,461.11 MYX Mayne Pharma Ltd $ 4.80 -1.0% 376.51 RGT Argent Biopharma Ltd $ 0.09 -1.1% 6.86 PNV Polynovo Limited $ 1.27 -1.2% 870.46 PYC PYC Therapeutics $ 1.20 -1.2% 699.91 BDX Bcal Diagnostics $ 0.08 -1.3% 27.45 NEU Neuren Pharmaceuticals $ 13.85 -1.4% 1,765.00 RMD ResMed Inc. $ 37.58 -1.5% 22,360.10 IME Imexhs Limited $ 0.33 -1.5% 17.70 LTP LTR Pharma $ 0.32 -1.5% 34.71 AHC Austco Healthcare $ 0.31 -1.6% 112.86 RHY Rhythm Biosciences $ 0.06 -1.6% 17.87 ONE Oneview Healthcare $ 0.27 -1.9% 202.31 VHL Vitasora Health Ltd $ 0.04 -2.4% 66.24 MSB Mesoblast Limited $ 1.60 -2.4% 1,560.40 CYC Cyclopharm Limited $ 1.18 -2.5% 131.70 AHX Apiam Animal Health $ 0.39 -2.5% 71.74 EBO Ebos Group Ltd $ 34.69 -2.5% 1,365.85 IMM Immutep Ltd $ 0.28 -2.6% 407.57 VIT Vitura Health Ltd $ 0.07 -2.9% 45.03 CUV Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals $ 10.24 -3.0% 457.13 AVH Avita Medical $ 1.89 -3.1% 123.08 NAN Nanosonics Limited $ 4.39 -3.1% 1,282.02 NUZ Neurizon Therapeutic $ 0.15 -3.3% 68.92 MAP Microba Life Sciences $ 0.15 -3.3% 64.94 BMT Beamtree Holdings $ 0.28 -3.4% 81.15 SIG Sigma Health Ltd $ 3.06 -3.5% 17,428.00 MX1 Micro-X Limited $ 0.06 -3.5% 36.70 CGS Cogstate Ltd $ 1.30 -3.5% 219.41 NC6 Nanollose Limited $ 0.05 -3.8% 15.24 RCE Recce Pharmaceutical $ 0.34 -4.2% 90.39 AYA Artrya $ 0.73 -4.6% 82.43 ACW Actinogen Medical $ 0.02 -4.8% 63.54 DXB Dimerix Ltd $ 0.58 -4.9% 326.72 ACL Au Clinical Labs $ 2.78 -5.1% 395.94 EBR EBR Systems $ 1.09 -5.2% 465.57 NXS Next Science Limited $ 0.07 -5.6% 19.57 EMV Emvision Medical $ 1.68 -5.6% 140.67 AT1 Atomo Diagnostics $ 0.02 -5.9% 10.98 PTX Prescient Ltd $ 0.05 -6.0% 37.85 AGN Argenica $ 0.77 -6.1% 98.63 M7T Mach7 Tech Ltd $ 0.35 -6.7% 84.43 BOT Botanix Pharma Ltd $ 0.35 -6.8% 620.71 ZLD Zelira Therapeutics $ 0.46 -7.1% 5.71 SNT Syntara Limited $ 0.07 -7.1% 105.57 CAN Cann Group Ltd $ 0.01 -7.1% 8.09 TYP Tryptamine Ltd $ 0.03 -8.6% 44.45 NTI Neurotech International $ 0.02 -8.7% 22.04 SHG Singular Health $ 0.30 -9.1% 83.31 ECS ECS Botanics Holding $ 0.01 -9.1% 14.26 GSS Genetic Signatures $ 0.49 -9.3% 110.16 CBL Control Bionics $ 0.03 -9.7% 8.84 ILA Island Pharma $ 0.21 -10.6% 49.05 UBI Universal Biosensors $ 0.04 -10.6% 12.52 EMD Emyria Limited $ 0.03 -10.7% 13.75 TRU Truscreen $ 0.02 -11.1% 13.32 RHT Resonance Health $ 0.04 -11.6% 20.22 RAC Race Oncology Ltd $ 1.21 -12.0% 210.22 4DX 4DMedical Limited $ 0.31 -12.9% 146.64 CYP Cynata Therapeutics $ 0.17 -13.2% 37.28 CU6 Clarity Pharma $ 1.91 -13.8% 535.84 CDX Cardiex Limited $ 0.04 -16.1% 17.87 1AI Algorae Pharma $ 0.01 -16.7% 8.44 TRJ Trajan Group Holding $ 0.77 -16.8% 116.57 IMU Imugene Limited $ 0.01 -17.6% 112.01 MEM Memphasys Ltd $ 0.00 -18.2% 7.93 AVE Avecho Biotech Ltd $ 0.00 -20.0% 12.69 BP8 Bph Global Ltd $ 0.00 -20.0% 2.10 VBS Vectus Biosystems $ 0.05 -21.7% 2.50 CTQ Careteq Limited $ 0.01 -23.1% 2.37 1AD Adalta Limited $ 0.00 -33.3% 1.93 Inoviq (ASX:IIQ) rose ~24% in May and got hit with a speeding ticket by the ASX. The oncology play had no particular news out in May and attributed the increase to publication online of an abstract accepted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) for a poster presentation about results of its EXO-OC test for ovarian cancer. Inoviq said the result had already been released in December and referred to in subsequent business updates. "Some shareholders may have missed or misunderstood the significance of our 3 December 2024 ASX release and subsequent related updates noted above and may believe the Abstract contains new or better information, which is materially price sensitive, that is not the case in the company's view. The company said new information to be delivered in the poster presentation at the ASCO annual meeting on June 1 was "considered price sensitive". On June 2 Inoviq announced that new data presented at the ASCO meeting showed its EXO-OC test achieved 77% sensitivity at 99.6% specificity for detecting ovarian cancer at all stages. Clever Culture Systems (ASX:CC5) continued to build momentum in May and was up 26.7% for the month after announcing a positive quarterly update in April, including its second quarter of positive cashflow. Clever Culture is targeting profitability in FY25 and building a substantial sales pipeline to underpin growth in FY26 for its APAS Independence instruments, which remain the only US FDA-cleared AI technology for automated culture plate reading. Lumos Diagnostics (ASX:LDX) rose 7.4% in May after several positive announcements including the largest single purchase order to date for its FebriDx test, a rapid point-of-care (POC) diagnostic designed to differentiate between bacterial and non-bacterial acute respiratory infections. Developer and distributor of cost-saving solutions for hospitals, surgery centres, clinics and healthcare facilities across the US iMedical purchased US$126,000 worth of FebriDx tests. In May Lumos also expanded Medicare reimbursement coverage in the US for FebriDx. By the end of May Lumos had secured reimbursement from six out of seven US Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) representing over 85% of US Medicare payment coverage. And Australia's biggest private hospital operator Ramsay Health Care (ASX:RHC) rose 5.1% in May after providing a positive update on its 52.8% stake in European hospitals business Santé, with unaudited group revenue for the nine months period ending March 31, up by 5.1%.

Kylie Jenner makes surprisingly detailed cosmetic surgery confession
Kylie Jenner makes surprisingly detailed cosmetic surgery confession

News.com.au

time3 hours ago

  • News.com.au

Kylie Jenner makes surprisingly detailed cosmetic surgery confession

Keeping up with Kylie Jenner's plastic surgery. The reality star broke down her boob job in exact detail in a TikTok comment this week after a fan praised her 'most perfect, natural boob job ever.' The social media user asked the makeup mogul, 'Help a girl out @Kylie Jenner, I just want to know how to get them to sit like that, respectfully.' Jenner, 27, replied, '445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! silicone!!!' According to London's Centre for Surgery, 445 cc is estimated to be between a D and DD cup depending on the starting breast size. A moderate profile, meanwhile, is meant to appear the most natural. The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star went on to provide the name of her Beverly Hills, California, doctor, Garth Fisher, in her candid confession. Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian have worked with Fisher over the years for a breast augmentation and a cancerous facial tumour removal, respectively. Jenner concluded, 'Hope this helps lol.' The Kylie Cosmetics creator's fans raved over her reply, labelling the Kardashians star a 'girls' girl' and a 'queen.' The Hulu personality has reacted to plastic surgery rumours multiple times over the years, even denying in a September 2015 blog post that she had ever gone under the knife. 'I haven't gotten breast implants! Everyone is obsessed with that,' she wrote on her website at the time. 'Truth is, as I've gotten older, I've gained 15 pounds and my body has changed; I've definitely filled out.' The following month, the then-18-year-old tweeted, 'I haven't done anything except my lips but nobody seems to believe that.' However, by July 2023 Jenner made headlines for admitting to getting a boob job at age 19 on an episode of her family's show. 'I wish I could … do it all differently,' Jenner — who is the mother of daughter Stormi, 7, and son Aire, 3 — said. 'Because I wouldn't touch anything.' She explained to pal Anastasia 'Stassie' Karanikolaou that she wanted to be an 'example' for her eldest child. 'I'd be heartbroken if [Stormi] wanted to get her body done at 19,' Jenner said. Earlier that same year, Jenner got roasted by fans for insisting she hasn't had as 'much' work done on her face as people believe. 'I think a big misconception about me is that I've had so much surgery on my face and that I was some insecure person, and I really wasn't!' Jenner told HommeGirls in April 2023, claiming she always felt 'cute.' The businesswoman clarified at the time that she doesn't 'regret' getting lip filler.

A dubious report on medical abortion was cited in NSW Parliament. Where did it come from?
A dubious report on medical abortion was cited in NSW Parliament. Where did it come from?

ABC News

time3 hours ago

  • ABC News

A dubious report on medical abortion was cited in NSW Parliament. Where did it come from?

Multiple members of NSW Parliament have cited a flawed US report on the safety of a medical abortion pill, during the parliamentary debate on a bill to expand abortion access in the state. The bill, which has passed both houses of parliament, allows nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives to prescribe abortion medication for early-stage pregnancies. The recent paper, which suggested the medical abortion pill mifepristone carried more risk for women than previously thought, was cited by MPs on both sides of the divide — including Liberals, Labor, and independents. ABC NEWS Verify contacted Australian experts for help interpreting the report. They variously labelled it "not scientific", "scaremongering" and "misinformation". The document was published by a US-based conservative think tank named the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). On its website it says "pushing back against the extreme progressive agenda, while building a consensus for conservatives" is one of its priorities. The report was authored by the EPPC's director of data analysis, Jamie Bryan Hall, and its president, Ryan T. Anderson. Both men formerly worked for one of Washington's most prominent right-wing think tanks, the Heritage Foundation — which controversially spearheaded Project 2025, sometimes labelled a "blueprint" for US President Donald Trump's second-term agenda. The report claimed that one in 10 patients experience at least one serious adverse event within 45 days following an abortion involving the drug mifepristone. Mifepristone is one of the drugs used in medical abortions in Australia, the US, and other countries. In Australia, the medication misoprostol is also prescribed as a second step. The EPPC report further claimed the rate of serious adverse events after mifepristone abortions was "at least 22 times as high as the summary figure of 'less than 0.5 per cent' in clinical trials reported on the drug label". University of Sydney gynaecology professor Kirsten Black said there were a number of issues with the report. "This study in America was not published in a reputable journal," she said "It's not really clear … where the data came from, how it was analysed. It hasn't been peer-reviewed. "It's misinformation and it's just propaganda," she said. On an FAQ page for the paper, the EPPC said the point of the study wasn't peer review, but replicability. "We have made our study fully replicable for anyone who wants to analyze the insurance claims data," it said, claiming the dataset was available for purchase and the methodology was public. A spokesman for the EPPC refused to disclose the source of the data to ABC NEWS Verify. "There's nothing unique about our dataset — it's effectively all the insurance claims data that exist from 2017 to early 2024, both public and private," he said. Asked about whether this contributed to what the FAQ page called a "replicability crisis" he said the data was clear and it was easy for anybody interested to replicate the study, but didn't address how those seeking to replicate the study would do so without knowing the exact source. Despite these transparency shortcomings, ABC NEWS Verify found at least eight Liberal MPs, a Labor MP, and two independents all cited the report in parliament during the debate. Independent MP Joe McGirr, who is medically trained, highlighted the report in parliament as an example of complication rates of mifepristone abortions, orally citing the report's authors, in a manner similar to how scientific studies are often referenced. "A paper released in April this year by Hall and Anderson cites an analysis of American insurance claims data," he said during his speech. In a statement to ABC NEWS Verify, Dr McGirr said he cited the study "in the context of showing a range of interpreted complication rates from the use of MS-2 Step, with other rates between 3 per cent and 6.6 per cent cited elsewhere." He didn't answer a question on whether he probed the report's methodology before referencing it in parliament. Labor's Greg Donnelly drew attention to the report under the guise of "medical, academic and other literature", without mentioning any of the academic literature, including systematic reviews, published in peer-reviewed journals. Mr Donnelly did not respond to questions from ABC NEWS Verify about why he chose to quote the study. Upper house Liberal MP Susan Carter used the report to suggest "the science is changing" and it "indicated a significantly higher serious adverse event rate from medical abortion than had previously been understood". In an interview, she told ABC NEWS Verify she quoted the study because she found it "really interesting" as it was "the biggest study of its kind". She said it was the first paper she had seen which relied on health insurance records to track a patient's progress after taking the pill. "So you could actually, instead of tracking the procedure, which is what we do in Australia, this was tracking the woman." Professor Black said that serious adverse events following mifepristone "happen in about one in 1,000 cases, two in 1,000, not 10 per cent". Monash University women's health professor Danielle Mazza told ABC NEWS Verify that adverse events following mifepristone in Australia were very rare. She said the EPPC report is "scaremongering by anti-abortionists". Professor Mazza pointed to two systematic reviews that analysed data from several different studies and concluded that mifepristone and misoprostol are highly safe and effective. Epidemiologist and science communicator Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, who is a senior research fellow at the University of Wollongong, identified the lack of transparency around the source of the data used in the report as an issue, labelling the document as "very inadequate". He called the paper's definition of a serious adverse event "bizarre". The serious adverse event rate of "one in 10" (or 10.93 per cent, to be precise) includes some questionable categories. For example, repeated (surgical) abortion — where a woman might need a surgical abortion after an incomplete medical one — makes up 2.84 per cent. Dr Meyerowitz-Katz said this does not count as a serious adverse event. "[Surgical abortions] have an extremely low rate of severe adverse events themselves … these are usually considered failures of the pill, not adverse events per se," he said. Then there is the category of "ectopic pregnancy" (0.35 per cent) which occurs when a fertilised egg implants itself outside the uterus. Mifepristone does not cause this condition, but the EPPC included it because the FDA specifies patients with the condition should not take it. The EPPC later acknowledged to the Washington Post that not all ectopic pregnancy patients who are prescribed mifepristone, for example, while they're waiting for an ectopic pregnancy diagnosis, later took the drug. There are also contradictions in the EPPC's description of its methodology, which claims to have analysed procedure codes in the insurance data. For example, in the report, it states "other abortion-specific complications" includes codes "related to an abortion or miscarriage, as well as life-threatening mental health diagnoses". In the FAQ, published days later, it said it excluded mifepristone use for miscarriage care from the dataset. The EPPC spokesman asserted to ABC NEWS Verify that miscarriage was excluded from the report, without explaining the discrepancy. The FAQ also said the report only included mental health codes which "met the criteria for life-threatening, in order to not overestimate that category". But the spokesman conceded no patients were actually found under these codes. Beyond these classification issues is the broader issue of causation — that is, whether the adverse events following mifepristone can be causally linked to the pill. "The authors have assumed that every event following an abortion is related to that abortion, but they have no methodology that would allow them to make such an assessment," Dr Meyerowitz-Katz said. He said the EPPC's FAQ didn't adequately explain the paper's methodology. "How specifically did they define something that was 'life-threatening'? Which codes did they use?" Dr Meyerowitz-Katz said. "Had the authors attempted to get this published in a high-quality scientific journal, these questions would have been asked by peer-reviewers. "This [paper] is completely worthless as evidence and should be ignored by anyone who is interested in accurate health information." It is unclear how so many NSW politicians came to quote the report during debate in parliament. An adviser to Dr McGirr said, "it was provided by a parliamentary colleague" without giving additional context. But the debate, which took place in the first two weeks of May, occurred shortly after the report's release, and amidst a push in the US to review the use of mifepristone in abortions. Some US conservatives want tighter restrictions placed on the drug. On April 24, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary told PBS News he had "no plans to take action on mifepristone". But that came with a caveat about "hypothetical" new data on the drug. "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 that we have not yet seen," Mr Makary said. Days later, on April 28, the EPPC published its report, with insurance data questioning the safety of the drug. On the same day, it was seized upon by Republican senator Josh Hawley, who has a long history of anti-abortion positions. "It is time to revisit and restore the FDA's longstanding safety measures governing mifepristone," Senator Hawley said in a letter to Mr Makary. On May 14, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr told a congressional hearing — in answer to a question from Senator Hawley — that he had ordered a complete review of the drug. Dr Meyerowitz-Katz said the report was not a study, as it has been presented, but a "white paper", published by an "explicitly religious" organisation. "[The report] is filled with issues, and the authors have failed to include basic data to allow us to know what they actually did," he said. "All in all, this reads to me more like the political strategising of an explicitly anti-abortion group than any rational scientific analysis."

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