Conference turris::scandia

196.0. "Swedish 'abortion' drug" by TLE::SAVAGE (Neil, @Spit Brook) Fri Mar 27 1987 10:13

Associated Press Thu 26-MAR-1987 15:06                   Sweden-Abortion Pill

                         `Abortion' Pill in the Works
    
                                By JOHAN RAPP
                           Associated Press Writer
    
    STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Women may be able to abort pregnancies with a
    single pill within a few years, researchers said Thursday. 
    
    Professor Marc Bygdeman of Stockholm's Karolinska hospital said he
    tested a new drug on 600 pregnant women in Sweden, Italy, China, India,
    Hungary and other countries in cooperation with the World Health
    Organization. "Ninety-five percent of the tests were successful," he
    said. 
    
    Bygdeman said the women were given a combination of drugs over three
    days, beginning within three weeks of a missed menstrual period. He
    said the drugs' side effects were no more serious than those of a
    spontaneous miscarriage - bleeding and painful contractions. 
    
    Bygdeman said the treatment combined a hormone developed in Sweden with
    a drug produced by Etienne Baulieu of the University of Paris Sud. 
    
    Paul Van Look, a WHO medical officer in Geneva, said a French company
    plans to apply this year for a license to distribute Baulieu's drug,
    and it may be on the market in two or three years. He said the French
    drug worked in 85 to 90 percent of the cases. Van Look said WHO wanted
    such drugs for use in Third World nations that lack modern facilities
    for surgical abortions. 
    
    The Swedish hormone has been approved as safe by authorities here. The
    French drug must be registered before it can be used in treatment in
    Sweden. "It seems quite possible that eventually all you do is to take
    one pill, once," Bygdeman said. He predicted it could take four or five
    years before such a pill was on the market.