When the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing in Washington on a budget for the Food and Drug Administration, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi) raised the issue of approval of abortion drugs that have proven to be dangerous.
"Specifically, more than 20% of reported complications were life-threatening or resulted in death, and over 70% of reported complications required follow-up surgeries, including total hysterectomies," the senator noted.
Hyde-Smith expressed her alarm that the agency would lift abortion restrictions during COVID and allow the pills to be delivered by mail without the patient seeing a doctor before or after the chemical procedure.
"For instance, the FDA and CDC imposed a pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine after reports of blood clots in some women," the senator pointed out. "At the same time, FDA's expanding the approval for chemical abortion pills that have much, much higher risk of blood clots than the J&J vaccine."
Yet the abortion drugs have not been paused; they are being distributed widely throughout the country.
Because the quoted figures represent a small fraction of harmful incidents, Senator Hyde-Smith is asking the FDA to mandate that adverse complications be reported. Without the data, the agency cannot clearly see the danger of the drugs.
