Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Associated Press
Published on 2024-02-08 15:11:13
A medical journal retracted two studies that had previously claimed to show the harms of the abortion pill mifepristone. The retraction was due to conflicts of interest by the authors and flaws in their research. The studies were cited in a pivotal Texas court ruling that has threatened access to the pill, and the case will go before the U.S. Supreme Court next month.
Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and it typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. The studies were published in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology and were supported by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which is part of an advocacy group seeking to end access to abortion.
One of the studies looked at 423,000 abortions and over 121,000 emergency room visits following medication abortions and abortions done through a medical procedure from 1999 to 2015. The researchers concluded that medication abortions are consistently and progressively associated with more post-abortion emergency room visit morbidity than the other type. Another study concluded that failure to identify a prior abortion during an emergency room visit is a significant risk factor for a subsequent hospital admission.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk cited the studies in a controversial legal ruling that will go before the U.S. Supreme Court next month. The ruling claimed that mifepristone causes many intense side effects and that abortion physicians experience enormous pressure and stress. However, the legal arguments and statistics cited in Kacsmaryk’s decision have been met with skepticism, and a federal appeals court overturned parts of the ruling last summer.
The retraction of the studies was initiated after a reader contacted the journal with concerns about the presentation of some of the data and possible defects in the selection of the data. Sage Perspectives, the medical publisher, asked two experts to conduct an independent post-publication peer review which found that the conclusions were invalidated in whole or in part for several reasons, including problems with the study design and methodology and errors in the analysis of the data.
Ushma Upadhyay, a professor of public health at the University of California, San Francisco, stated that medication abortions are extremely safe, with less than a third of 1% being followed by a serious adverse event. She also pointed out that mifepristone has been used for more than two decades and has been used by about 6 million people for abortions. Upadhyay highlighted a major flaw in the retracted research, stating that the authors conflated emergency room visits with serious adverse events and did not confirm whether patients received treatment.
The retractions of research papers have been on the rise, with more than 10,000 retracted papers in the last year. About 1 in 500 papers is retracted, in comparison to 1 in 5,000 two decades ago.
In conclusion, the retraction of these studies has brought into question the claims about the harmful effects of mifepristone as well as the motivations and conflicts of interest of the authors. The upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case will have significant implications for nationwide access to mifepristone, including whether it continues to be available by mail. It is essential for the court to consider reliable and well-founded scientific evidence before making any decisions regarding access to this medication.
