Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

What Is RU 486 and How Does It Work?Rather than preventing progesterone receptor activation,they found that RU 486 may work as a cytotoxic agent (acell poison; see also Parinaud et al., 1990; 1537 for a similarresult in human cell culture). This raises a crucial questionfor the use of RU 486 as an abortifacient. If it is a cytotoxicdrug, does RU 486 terminate pregnancies by non-specificcell poisoning? Such an explanation would be far removedfrom the current understanding of anti-progesterone activity.Another experiment found that the tumor-inhibiting potentialof ZK 112.993 (a Schering drug) was greater than that ofRU 486 (Schneider et al., 1990:683).To end this section on other sites and applications of RU486, it has also been administered to women on IVFprograms whose pregnancies do not continue (Asch et al.,1990:481). This is the case for 20–40 per cent of womenwho had a successful embryo transfer. After fertility hormonecocktails, hormone monitoring and invasive egg harvestingprocedures, they might now be administered yet anotherhazardous chemical: RU 486.The Effect of RU 486 on Women’s Menstrual Cycles,Fertility, Eggs and EmbryosEtienne Baulieu consistently extends the application of RU486 beyond the drug’s use as an abortifacient to other realmsof female reproduction. As he puts it: ‘RU 486 is a newmedical tool for fertility control’ (1988b: 127). Contraceptionis a case in point. Given at mid-cycle, RU 486 appears todelay ovulation. However, this feature would requirecontinuous administration of the drug which, ‘may beprohibited by the effects of chronically unopposed oestrogenon the endometrium’ (Permezel, 1990:78). In plain English,this means cancer of the endometrium may result, as it haswith unopposed estrogen given to menopausal women.Research to date, aimed at identifying possible uses ofRU 486 as a means of fertility control before or afterovulation, reveals a host of contradictory data. The71