For Medical Professionals

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, joined by the American Medical Association and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and nine other prominent medical organizations, submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, in the case of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a case challenging the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone.

The amicus brief outlines the overwhelming evidence demonstrating that mifepristone—which has undergone rigorous testing and review and has been safely used in the United States for 23 years—is conclusively safe and effective. The amicus brief presents more than two decades of scientific evidence and medical data, based on hundreds of medical studies and millions of uses of mifepristone for medication abortion.

The amicus brief asks the court to recognize that the plaintiff’s arguments are fundamentally ideological, not scientific, and provide no legal justification to reverse 23 years of precedent and a wealth of scientific evidence.

“Our brief makes clear that mifepristone is a critical part of the practice of obstetrics and gynecology, and that forcing the FDA to rescind its marketing authorization would be a grievous mistake,” said Iffath Abbasi Hoskins, MD, FACOG, president of ACOG. “ACOG’s position is based on medical evidence and the clinical expertise of tens of thousands of obstetricians and gynecologists, and taking mifepristone off the market will force doctors to practice medicine in a way that doesn’t reflect the standard of care. This is both wrong and bad medicine.”

The data overwhelmingly illustrate the safety of this essential medication. As the brief states, “serious side effects occur in less than 1% of patients, and major adverse events—significant infection, blood loss or hospitalization—occur in less than 0.3% of patients. The risk of death is almost non-existent.” There is a greater risk of complications from wisdom tooth removal, colonoscopy, and Viagra use. The brief also explains the extreme burden that reversing the approval of mifepristone would place on an already overburdened and under-resourced reproductive health care system.

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The pandemic brought increased demand for abortion pills through telemedicine, according to providers.

Last week, Jamie Phifer, a Seattle-based family physician, did something she has done regularly for the past decade: She had an appointment with a patient seeking an abortion.  

But this appointment was different from many of the others that came before, because it was virtual. The woman was in another state, sitting in her car in her driveway, while her kids were inside on virtual school, Phifer said. The two spoke by video call.  

Read the full article here.

In July 2020, three months into the pandemic, and in response to a case filed by American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) and other organizations, a federal court blocked FDA’s enforcement of a restriction that requires the in-person dispensing of mifepristone.