Bill at INDC Journal, accuses me of “shoehorning science and medicine in order to fit an ideological agenda, misrepresenting risk and utilizing hyperbole” because I “hyped” the deaths of four Californian women who used RU-486, the abortion pill.

Bill implies that RU-486 is safe because only a small number of deaths have been linked to it. He notes (correctly) that plenty of other drugs are on the market despite being linked to far more than four deaths.

This is a good point, and I should have noted it in my post.

Even so, I’m not quite ready to start pumping RU-486 into the water supply. Just last month, the FDA expanded its warning about possible side effects. The drug already carried a black box warning (the most extreme warning possible).

According to the Los Angeles Times, the FDA is continuing to investigate the drug’s safety. Is the FDA “shoehorning science and medicine in order to fit an ideological agenda?” What about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the California Department of Health Services, and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services–all of which have launched their own investigations? Are they right-wing whackos too?

The Times says the crux of these inquiries is how and why the women who died after taking RU-486 got infections and “whether more women might have been harmed.”

Clearly these agencies are worried that these four women are just the tip of the iceberg. So am I.

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