| WASHINGTON
- September 28 - Feminist Majority
Foundation President Eleanor Smeal called today's FDA approval
of mifepristone, formerly known as RU 486, by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration "a total victory for the U.S. women. At
long last, science trumps anti-abortion politics and medical
McCarthyism. If this medication was primarily for men, the
French developers would already have received a Nobel Prize in
medicine."
Smeal continued, "Mifepristone will reframe the abortion
debate by providing more and earlier access. By increasing the
number and geographic spread of abortion availability,
mifepristone will lead to a decrease in clinic violence and an
increase in women's privacy."
"FDA approval of this medical breakthrough also means that
long-stalled and desperately-needed trials on mifepristone's
other uses such as treating uterine fibroid tumors, ovarian
cancer, endometriosis, meningioma (brain tumors), and some types
of breast cancer and other serious diseases and conditions that
mostly afflict women can finally move forward. We call upon NIH
to devote funding for these trials to help make up for the many
years of research time that has been lost to anti-abortion
politics," added Smeal.
In December of 1998, the Feminist Majority Foundation became
the sole provider of mifepristone for compassionate use patients
in the U.S. Physicians are able to obtain "compassionate use"
FDA permission for treating patients who have exhausted other
treatment options for critically ill patients with serious
diseases such as meningiomas, endometrial cancer, Cushing's
Syndrome, and breast cancer which show some clinical response to
mifepristone. The Foundation currently is supplying medication
for 40 patients.
The Feminist Majority Foundation has led the 12-year campaign
to make mifepristone available in the U.S. The Feminist Majority
Foundation in July 1990 led the first-ever U.S. delegation to
meet with then Roussel Uclaf CEO Dr. Edouard Sakiz. The
Feminist Majority Foundation delivered more than 700,000
petitions to Roussel Uclaf and Hoechst AG urging release of the
compound and won support for mifepristone from almost every
major U.S. women's rights organization and medical and
scientific association. The decision of Roussel Uclaf to
transfer mifepristone patent rights to a U.S. organization has
in significant part been credited to the Feminist Majority
Foundation's mobilization of support for the medication.
Mifepristone is now available in the United Kingdom, Sweden,
Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Israel, China, and a
growing list of countries. More than 10 million women have used
the medication as a safe, effective method of early abortion.
For more information or to schedule interviews, call Julie
Bernstein at 703-522-2214. Fact sheets on mifepristone's uses
and a chronology of the fight to bring mifepristone to the U.S.
can be found at http://www.feminist.org.
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