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Thursday • Septenber26,lB ^
RU-486 increases
abortion availability
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DALLAS (AP) — Abortions will be
come more accessible statewide when
the French pill RU-486 becomes avail
able next year as expected, say Texas
doctors, abortion clinic officials and
abortion opponents.
But those on both sides of the abor
tion debate disagree on how much ac
cess will grow, and whether the drug’s
availability will increase the total
number of abortions.
The pregnancy-ending pill, also
known by the chemical name mifepri
stone, is followed two days later by an
other pill that causes strong uterine
contractions to expel the fetus. The
process can be painful and cause
bleeding. It must be monitored close
ly, requiring three separate doctor ex
ams for safety.
Abortion providers and opponents
alike expect some doctors who are un
willing to do surgical abortions to do
medical abortions by prescribing the
drug. Such doctors, they say, will be
less fearful of protests by abortion op
ponents and won’t have to buy expen
sive equipment such as
vacuum aspirators.
“With the medical
abortion, then more
physicians in rural areas
will be able to provide
the service confidentially
to their patients,” said
Peggy Romberg, execu
tive director of the
Austin-based Texas Fam
ily Planning Association,
a group focusing on ac
cess to abortion and
contraception.
RU-486 cleared its last
“I think (doc
tors) feel more
comfortable ter
minating a preg
nancy earlier.”
major hurdle Sept. 18 when the Food
and Drug Administration said it was
safe and effective when used under a
doctor’s close supervision. The FDA
withheld final approval until it receives
more information about how the drug
would be manufactured and labeled.
The drug should be in doctors’ of
fices by mid- to late 1997, according to
the nonprofit Population Council,
which holds the U.S. rights to market
the drug.
Abortions currently are provided in
16 of the state’s 254 counties,
Romberg said. According to the Texas
Department of Health, 87,501 abor
tions were done statewide in 1995.
Some of the new abortion
providers are expected to be obstetri
cian-gynecologists who don’t perform
surgical abortions.
A 1995 survey sponsored by the Hen
ry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found
that 33 percent of obstetrician-gynecol
ogists who don’t perform surgical abor
tions said they would be likely to pre
scribe RU-486. The survey by the Menlo
Park, Calif.-based foundation included
307 doctors nationwide.
Texas has 2,604 obstetrician-gyne
cologists, according to the Texas Board
of Medical Examiners. Neither the
state nor abortion services groups
keep count of how many do abortions.
Dr. Terry Kuhlmann, president of
the Austin-based Texas Association of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, pre
dicted that fewer doctors than people
expected would provide abortions
once the drug becomes available.
“I think there’s a fair number of
physicians that just don’t like to do
abortions,” he said.
“I’m sure access will go up a little
bit, but it may not be quite as much as
what people think.”
But Kathryn Allen, director for
community services Planned Parent
hood of Dallas and Northeast Texas,
said doctors have told her differently.
“We have had many physicians
who don’t provide surgical abortions
say they would provide medical abor
tions,” she said.
Allen noted that the drug allows
abortions earlier in the gestation peri
od — from 10 days after conception
through about seven weeks — com
pared with surgical methods, which
cannot be performed until the embryo
is about 7 weeks old.
“I think (doctors) feel more com
fortable terminating a pregnancy ear
lier. It also makes it much more pri
vate,” she said.
The confidentiality
does indeed mean
more doctors are likely
to provide abortions
using RU-486, said Bill
Price of the anti-abor
tion group Texans Unit
ed for Life.
“In some places, I
think it probably will be
a lot easier for certain
physicians to provide
this without being no
ticed,” Price said. “But I
don’t think that’s going
Testing Mad Cow dm
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BOSTON (AP) — Sci
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human equivalent, pro
viding a possible new way
of slowing the spread of
this insidious killer.
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Kathryn Allen
Planned Parenthood
to be the case in smaller communities.
"Any physician that gets involved in
this is going to find themselves in a
tremendous amount of controversy. To
think otherwise is to ignore the history
of this issue.”
Facilities that already have been
targets of abortion protests said they
certainly will offer RU-486.
Planned Parenthood of Houston
and Southeast Texas Inc., the state’s
largest affiliate of the national orga
nization, will begin offering RU-486
at its central clinic in Houston as
soon as possible.
It also will look at dispensing the
drug at its 10 clinics in towns like
Lufkin, Rosenberg and Stafford, said
spokeswoman Rebecca White.
Nonetheless, White said she be
lieved the drug will be used by people
who would have chosen to have abor
tions anyway.
“I think the pie doesn’t get any big
ger. It may be sliced up differently,”
White said. "I don’t see an increase in
the total number of abortions.”
Abortion providers also said the
staffing requirements for using RU-
486 — which have not been deter
mined by the FDA — will play a role in
their decision to use the drugs.
If only doctors may monitor pa
tients, “we’re looking at following the
woman over a day’s time while she ter
minates,” Allen said. “It might be
cost-prohibitive.”
of animals that look sick
but are actually healthy.
And it should enable
doctors to distinguish pa
tients with the exceeding
ly rare human variety of
the illness — Creutirfeldt-
Jakob disease — from
those with much more
common Alzheimer’s,
which has some of the
same symptoms.
“The single most dif
ficult diagnosis is assur
ing yourself whether the
patient has Alzheimer’s
disease or Creutzfeldt-
Jakob disease,” said one
of the developers of the
test, Dr. Clarence J.
Gibbs Jr. of the National
Institutes of Health.
“If the patient has
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
you have to advise the
family that the patient will
die within a year. If it's
Alzheimer’s, you tell them
it will be a long, drawn-
out affair.”
The new test doesn’t
offer any way to treat
the disease.
Practically any medical
lab could offer the test
now, using currently avail
able equipment.
The test was created by
researchers from NIH and
the California Institute of
Technology. A report on
the discovery was pub
lished in Thursday’s issue
of the New England Jour
nal of Medicine.
The human and cattle
varieties of the disease
emerged from obscurity
earlier this year in Britain.
An outbreak of bovine
spongiform encephalopa-
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checking
donors with the new
could elp reducethe
of this sort of spread.
The test requin
spinal tap, a generally
but unpleasant pro
dure. The sampl
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checked for a telltali
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sions, including ones
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Creutzfeldt-
disease strikesabi
one in 1 million pi
annually in the
States. Alzheimer's
flicts 30 percent
Americans by age 85.
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ease may lie dormant
years. But once sympti
appear, it quicklydesti
the brain. Victims becoe
demented and lose tin
coordination, sightafwill the natio
ability to speak.
In their study, then
searchers testedspint
fluid from 71 people wit
(Teutzfeldt-Jakobdiseas
and 94 with otherforw
dementia. It rvas about
percent accurate in tel
them apart.
In an editorial in
journal, Dr. John Col
of the
School of Medicine
London called the test
welcome step forward’
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