{"id":166297,"date":"2025-09-28T16:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T16:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/166297\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T16:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T16:15:07","slug":"kennedy-targets-popular-abortion-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/166297\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy targets popular abortion pill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"nh3vj\">Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, has ordered a review of a widely used \u00adabortion pill, a move that activists fear is a fresh attempt to limit women\u2019s access to safe abortions.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"dg6cm\">The US Food and Drug Administration will examine the \u201csafety and efficacy\u201d of mifepristone, Kennedy said in a letter to Republican attorneys-general who had requested the review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sans-small\">For information about how The Observer protects your data, read our <a class=\"underline\" href=\"https:\/\/observer.co.uk\/policy\/privacy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"dhrrq\">The pill, which blocks a hormone that is required for pregnancy to continue, is used in about two-thirds of abortions in the US and many in the UK.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"cntfb\">Kennedy cited a conservative thinktank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which published material \u2013 not peer reviewed by scientists \u2013 claiming that more women experienced side effects than \u00adclinical studies had established.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"3ciq8\">Brittany Fonteno, president of the National Abortion Federation, said that Kennedy\u2019s \u201cattacks on science and his ongoing spread of disinformation around safe medications are reckless, alarming and completely out of step with reality\u201d.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"8bqb0\">\u201cThe facts are clear,\u201d Fonteno said. \u201cMifepristone is a safe, research-backed method to end a pregnancy, used by millions with proven efficacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"cthj2\">Abortion pills are banned in many Republican-controlled states after the US supreme court \u00adoverturned the Roe v Wade \u00adjudgment in 2022.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"5oepe\">If the FDA withdrew Mifepristone\u2019s licence, it would affect women in Democratic-held areas as well. Women getting an abortion usually take mifepristone followed by misoprostol. Taken on its own, misoprostol works in 85% to 95% of cases.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"1mm0l\">Last month, doctors said there was evidence that mifepristone could reduce the risk of breast cancer, the leading cause of cancer among women.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"86o31\">In a paper in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology &amp; Women\u2019s Health, experts said pharmaceutical companies were reluctant to conduct research because of \u201cstigma\u201d around the drug.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"w4e71\">Photograph by Yuri Gripas\/Abaca\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, has ordered a review of a widely used \u00adabortion pill,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[102,6591,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-166297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}