Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday that the previous administration of Joe Biden manipulated abortion pill safety data, resulting in an apparent 22 times higher risk for serious complications than had been reported.
During questioning by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) on the Trump administration's health care agenda, the ongoing safety review of mifepristone, the first drug in a two-drug abortion regimen used by most women who seek abortions, was addressed.
In April, a study was released that showed nearly 11%, or one in nine women who take mifepristone, have a complication serious enough to seek emergency medical care.
Those complications included sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, and other adverse events occurring within 45 days following the abortion.
Lankford pointed out that since Biden loosened the restrictions on abortion pills in the wake of Roe V. Wade's overturning, "there’s all kinds of issues that are happening now on it."
The abortion drugs are now available without a prescription to make them easier to get, except when state laws prohibit them.
“So the question was: you’d said that there would be a review on that, just to be able to look at it, to make sure we’re following all safety protocols. Do you know a timing on that review?” Lankford asked.
Kennedy said the review was “progressing apace," according to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.
“We’re getting data in all the time, new data that we’re reviewing. And we know that during the Biden administration, they actually twisted the data to bury one of the safety signals with a very high safety signal around 11 percent,” Kennedy Jr. alleged, referring to the April study. “So we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore. We’re producing honest science and gold standard science on that. I’ll keep you abreast of where we are.”
The new study looked at more than 865,000 pill abortions that used mifepristone and were done between 2017 and 2023.
Kennedy called the study results "alarming" when he was questioned about them in May.
The use of abortion drugs has increased dramatically in recent years. Back in 2017, 39% of all abortions were done with medication, but in 2023, the most recent year data was available, 63% of abortions were done with medication.
That doesn't even account for abortions outside the U.S., or in cases where the pills were obtained through underground networks in states where they are banned.
Mifepristone works by blocking the action of progesterone, which causes the unborn child to die of starvation inside the womb. The second drug, misoprostol, then causes contractions so that the unborn child is expelled.
