Word: roussell
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Once again, controversy erupted. When Baulieu first began experimenting with RU 486 in combination with an oral prostaglandin, Roussel balked. As a result, Baulieu had to persuade French public health officials to defray insurance costs. After preliminary trials, the government compelled Roussel to participate, arguing that the proposed testing of an oral prostaglandin was important for women. Although Searle raised no objections, its executives remain uncomfortable about being linked to the abortion business. "Searle has never willingly made ((Cytotec)) available for use in abortion," a company official wrote in a letter to the Wall Street Journal in February...
...ABORTION DRUG HAS BEEN A source of controversy ever since its invention was announced in 1982 by Baulieu, a French physician who worked as a researcher at Roussel Uclaf. The concept was rather simple: RU 486, an antiprogestin, could break a fertilized egg's bond to the uterine wall and thus induce a miscarriage. An injection two days later of prostaglandin, a hormone-like substance, would force uterine contractions and speed the ejection of the embryo. It took six more years and tests on more than 17,000 women before the French government announced that RU 486 would be made...
...news spawned furious reaction in the press, an outpouring of outraged letters from Roman Catholic doctors, and a church-sponsored protest through the streets of Paris. A month later, a shaken Roussel Uclaf yanked the drug from the market, saying the company did not want to engage in a "moral debate...
Doctors around the world certainly did. Thousands of physicians had convened that month at a medical congress in Rio de Janeiro, and most of them signed a petition demanding that the French government reverse Roussel's decision. Within 48 hours, Health Minister Claude Evin declared that once government approval had been granted, "RU 486 became the moral property of women," and he ordered Roussel to resume distribution. In 1989 RU 486 was made available to all licensed abortion clinics and hospitals in France. The results proved encouraging, save for a freak incident in 1991 when a woman...
When she returns, she is required to sign a government form requesting the abortion. She must also sign a Roussel form that confirms her understanding that a malformed fetus might result if she does not see the abortion through to completion. (As yet no defects have been found in the small number of babies born to women known to have taken RU 486.) At that point, the woman is given three aspirin-like RU 486 tablets, each containing 200 mg of the drug. After swallowing the pills, she again goes home...