Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

What Is RU 486 and How Does It Work?potential teratogenic effects. This is especially importantbecause RU 486 induced abortion continues over aprolonged period, during which a number of women maychange their mind and decide to continue the pregnancy.In 1985, Frydman et al. wrote in The Lancet that theirresearch on second-trimester pregnant women conclusivelydemonstrated that mifepristone crossed the placenta and thatthe absence of fetal toxicity was yet to be demonstrated (p.1252). A year later, studies of cell cultures from seven totwelve-week-old embryos, which were obtained fromconventional pregnancy termination (Bischof et al., 1986),were compared with placentas obtained from normaldeliveries and then immersed in RU 486 (Das and Catt,1987). These studies demonstrated clearly that in earlyembryonic development RU 486 acts directly on thetrophoblast which later grows into the placenta. In late stagesof pregnancy, RU 486 inhibits the production and reducesthe secretion of placental hormones. In both cases theresearchers posit that this was due to inhibited production ofhCG. There is limited and contradictory data on whetherthis direct action on the trophoblast/ placenta might result inretardation of the embryos and contribute to the birth ofchildren with abnormalities.In their study designed to investigate the effect of RU 486on embryo transport and preimplantation development inmice Y.Q. Yang and J.T. Wu administered RU 486 orally at100mg/kg/day for two days to female mice, caged with malemice. 21 (Compared with the 600 mg commonly administeredto women this represents roughly a tenfold increase.) Thenext day the mice were ‘sacrificed’, and oviducts and uteriremoved and flushed for embryos. Compared with controls,the treated mice had fewer embryo numbers reaching theblastocyt stage (35 per cent versus 77 per cent) and generallyfewer embryos. In addition, 69 per cent of the embryos werelocated in the oviducts. Yang and Wu conclude that ‘RU 486could retain the embryos in the oviduct but expel those having77