Free Republic

Health officials are investigating whether there are any links in the cases of four California women — at least two in Los Angeles County — who have died since 2003 of massive infection after taking the so-called abortion pill, RU-486, and a follow-up drug. The state and federal probe follows an announcement last month by the Food and Drug Administration, after the June death of a Sherman Oaks woman, warning doctors and patients of the potential for serious bacterial infection under certain circumstances. At the heart of the inquiry in California are why and how the deadly infections developed and...

The controversial RU-486 abortion pill, which 18-year-old Holly Patterson of Livermore took a week before dying of a massive infection in September 2003, would be at least temporarily pulled from U.S. markets under federal legislation reintroduced last week. Republican lawmakers have reintroduced "Holly's Law," which would suspend Food and Drug Administration approval of RU-486 until the federal Government Accountability Office scrutinizes the process by which the drug came to U.S. markets in 2000. Backers of Holly's Law contend RU-486 was approved by the FDA under political pressure from the Clinton administration under a "fast-track" review process normally reserved for drugs...