Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

RU 486cent and 79 per cent from the respective treatments. The timebetween PG administration and abortion occurrence weresimilar for both groups, 839 minutes (14 hours!) in the vaginalpessary group and 897 minutes (15 hours!) in the extraamnioticinfusion group. However, these figures, on top ofbeing scandalous, are a gross underestimate, since the 20 percent of women who aborted outside of 24 hours were excludedfrom the analysis. Analgesic requirements were significantlydifferent for women in the two groups, with those in the infusiongroup requiring pethidine injections twice as frequently as thosein the pessary group. Side effects in the pessary versus theinfusion group were: temperature higher than 37°C, 77 percent versus 55 per cent; vomiting, 19 per cent versus 24 percent; diarrhea, 12 per cent versus three per cent. According toCameron and Baird (1984), no serious cardiovascular effectswere seen, but hypotension occurred in 19 per cent of thepessary group and nine per cent of the infusion. (Hypotensionis a known PG side-effect that may precede cardiac arrest).Again, according to Cameron and Baird, no excessive bloodloss was encountered in either group of their experiment, yetone woman in the infusion group was transfused with fiveunits of packed cells (this being the equivalent of five pints, ormeasured metrically, two liters of blood). Surgical terminationsunder general anaesthesia were performed in three women(two from the pessary group, and one from the infusion group)who did not abort successfully. This of course disregards the20-odd per cent of women in each group who are obliteratedfrom the records because they aborted outside of 24 hours.Furthermore, all women underwent an uterine evacuation afterPG treatment, whether the abortion was complete or not. Inretrospect, complete abortion, defined as the passage of thefetus and the placenta in its entirety, only occurred in 20 percent of women in each group which contradicted thepreliminary estimates of 77 per cent and 79 per cent abortionsuccess rates. Despite these shortcomings, the pessary methodwas deemed highly acceptable to both ‘patients and staff alike’102