Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) plans to place a hold on President Bush's nomination of acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to permanently head the agency unless "immediate steps" are taken to remove Danco Laboratories' medical abortion drug Mifeprex from the market, DeMint press secretary Wesley Denton said recently, the New York Times reports (Harris, New York Times, 9/15).
FDA in 2000 approved the sale of Mifeprex -- known generically as mifepristone -- to be used with misoprostol to induce a medical abortion, and more than 575,000 women have taken the drug since its approval, according to the National Abortion Federation. Experts in May called for more research into the causes of infection from the rare and potentially fatal bacterium Clostridium sordellii and other bacteria in women who were pregnant, some of whom took medical abortion drugs(Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 5/12).
Senators Promise Holds