This is an excerpt of the analysis of the research from our partner organization the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG).
Mitchell Creinin, a paid consultant for the abortion pill manufactorer Danco, is the prinicipal investigator of a recently terminated study seeking to disprove the legitimacy of APR. The study was halted after enrolling just 12 women, following three instances of “severe hemorrhage requiring ambulance transport to hospital.” It was implied by various media outlets that APR was to blame for these hospitalizations, however, a more thorough review of the data reveals the opposite.
Here are the facts:
Two out of the three patients who hemorrhaged were from the placebo group– the group that DID NOT received progesterone. This is a 40% significant hemorrhage incidence from mifepristone ALONE, not from using progesterone. Both of those patients from the mifepristone alone group required a D&C in the ER, and one required a transfusion.
The third patient who hemorrhaged was from the progesterone group. By the time she reached the ER she had essentially completed passing tissue and her bleeding spontaneously subsided. An ultrasound in the ER was consistent with a completed abortion and she did not require either surgery or transfusion. This amounted to a 20% hemorrhage rate (so actually, progesterone would appear to have a PROTECTIVE effect against hemorrhage as compared to mifepristone alone, although the numbers are small).
Of greatest importance, 4 of the 5 women in the progesterone treatment group had living fetuses as confirmed by ultrasound documentation of a fetal heartbeat two weeks after taking mifepristone – that’s an 80% success rate!
The authors and the media outlets like NPR are wildly mischaracterizing the study results, even going as far as falsely claiming that the study shows that progesterone APR treatments are dangerous for women. This mischaracterization is fueled by the authors contortions to explain the cessation of the study, and to blame it somehow on progesterone. Without any evidence whatsoever in their data, the authors are claiming that these women on mifepristone alone would not have hemorrhaged if they had taken the misoprostol. Unfortunately for the authors, nothing in their study supports such a wild claim. In fact, in the analysis of 600 Adverse event reports submitted to the FDA in the first 4 years after approval of mifepristone, all of the women with massive hemorrhage requiring transfusion HAD TAKEN misoprostol after taking mifepristone.
The 2018 FDA Postmarketing summary of severe adverse events after the use of mifepristone lists 24 women who died after use of mifepristone for abortion, as well as ruptured ectopic pregnancies, hemorrhages requiring transfusion, sepsis and other adverse events. None of these women in the adverse event reports had taken progesterone, and all of them had used either buccal or vaginal misoprostol, which did not prevent their hemorrhages or their transfusions.
So, there is absolutely zero evidence to support the claim that taking misoprostol would have avoided the massive hemorrhage seen in women who took mifepristone alone in this study. In fact, the study authors did not even study the question, because they did not administer misoprostol at all. One might wonder if the 80% fetal survival rate after administration of progesterone might have been the actual reason that led the authors to discontinue the study.
“This study by Dr. Creinin confirms two things that we have previously known but the abortion industry refuses to acknowledge.
First, mifepristone is a dangerous medication for both women and their unborn children.It is precisely for this reason that we support the FDA REMS that control the prescription and use of this medication and oppose any efforts to remove them.
Second, the use of progesterone for pregnancy rescue is an effective option for women who change their minds after taking mifepristone and desire a chance to save the life of their unborn child.
As compassionate healthcare providers, it would be unethical for us to withhold this treatment from women seeking it given the information we have. All women’s healthcare physicians, regardless of their feelings about abortion, should be able to agree on this.”
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