Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990 TAG: 9003081463
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Short
The pill, known as RU 486 or mifepristone, has been available in France since 1988.
The study, whose results duplicate earlier findings, show that the medical approach works as well as vacuum aspiration, the most common form of abortion, when taken by women up to three weeks after they miss their menstrual period.
The study, based on the experience of 2,115 women, was conducted by Dr. Louise Silvestre and others from Roussel-Uclaf, the French company that makes the pill. Their findings were published in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
In France, the pill is not available for home use. Women must take the medicine at a clinic or hospital and return two days later for an injection of a synthetic form of the hormone prostaglandin.
Most of the women studied had temporary abdominal pain after getting the shots, but there were few other side effects. Failures consisted mostly of incomplete expulsion of the fetus. In those cases, the abortions were completed surgically.
Dr. Sheldon J. Segal of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York noted in an accompanying editorial that Roussel-Uclaf has withheld the drug from sale in other countries for larger studies of its effectiveness and safety.
by CNB