Word: ru
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Those political barriers, however, are quickly crumbling. Two days after his Inauguration, President Clinton ordered his Administration to "promote the testing, licensing and manufacturing" of RU 486. Until then, the French manufacturer of the drug, Roussel Uclaf, and its German parent company, Hoechst AG, had steadfastly shied away from becoming involved in the American market for fear of infuriating antiabortion activists. But in April, at the instigation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Roussel announced a compromise: it agreed to license RU 486 to the U.S. Population Council, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, which in turn...
...volunteered their states as test sites, and the FDA is enthusiastic. Says commissioner David Kessler: "If there is a safe and effective medical alternative to a surgical procedure, then we believe it should be available in this country." Although testing a new drug generally takes seven to 10 years, RU 486 has been so widely used in France that U.S. approval could come in as little as two to three years. In the meantime, the testing will enable at least 2,000 women to use the pill...
...will not allow anti-choice zealots to deny RU 486 to American women," vows Pamela Maraldo, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The pro-life forces are no less determined. "When they invent new ways to kill children, we will invent new ways to save them," warns the Rev. Keith Tucci of Operation Rescue National. A coalition of antiabortion forces has scheduled a demonstration in front of the French embassy in Washington on June 18, just three days before Roussel Uclaf holds its annual meeting in Paris...
...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...
...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 who was an avid smoker suffered...