more on our double standards........

POLITICAL MEDICINE FDA double standards: Vioxx and RU-486
By Hannah Selinger RAW STORY COLUMNIST
On Nov. 16, the New York Times reported the following tidbit: “The death of a California woman in January after she took an abortion pill prompted federal drug regulators on Monday to strengthen the warning label on the drug, RU-486, also known as mifepristone.”

The woman’s death was the third in the United States since the drug’s approval in 2000, though abortion advocacy groups have noted that over 360,000 women have taken the drug in the past four years.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, Vioxx, the recently recalled pain killer made by Merck, has been known to cause heart attacks, intestinal bleeding, kidney and liver impairment, respiratory infections, and strokes. But the product was taken by some 20 million Americans and caused at least 14 deaths before the FDA took action.
Vioxx was on the market for five years before anyone thought twice about side effects. Yet, in less than one year, one woman’s death from RU-486 has caused the FDA to change the drug’s label, which may or may not dissuade women from using the drug in the future.
Too bad Vioxx did not get this kind of reaction when it claimed its first three victims.
In four years, three people have died from RU-486, which is approximately .00083 percent of the women who have taken the drug. Three people, as opposed to the 32,238 Americans who, the National Center for Health Statistics reported in 2001, died of uncommon septicemia (blood poisoning), or the 39, 480 people who died of equally uncommon nephritis (kidney inflammation).
These are arbitrary statistics and people die from all kinds of arbitrary causes. It is common knowledge, for instance, that eating fast food leads to heart disease, but there is no warning label on the Big Mac. ..................