State asks FDA to drop restriction abortion pill
By: Scott Fallon
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... Officials in New Jersey and other states petitioned the Trump administration on June 5 [2025] to waive current restitutions for a long-prescribed abortion pill that they argue block access to the drug, in the least conflict over its use.
.....
The petition from state Attorney General Matthew Platkin to the Food and Drug Administration comes three days after the agency's leader said he would oversee a safety review of the drug, mifepristone.
..... The states are asking the FDA to sue the safety review to life the restrictions they object to.
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Mifepristone has been used along with another drug - misoprostol - to end early pregnancies in about 7.5 million women since it was approved by the FDA in 2000.
..... It has become a popular alternative to procedural abortions.
..... About 57% of abortions in New Jersey were carried out using medication in 2023, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
..... Platkin called the special rules to prescribe mifepriston burdensome "while not meaningfully improving patient safety."
..... From 2000 to 2024, about 1,000 hospitalizations and 36 deaths nationwide were associated with the drug, although many of the deaths involved other life-threatening circumstances, an FDA report said.
..... Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. asked the FDA last month [05/2025] to review mifeprisotone. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said he would do so, in correspondence released on June 2. [2025]
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Platkin and other attorneys general in New York, California and Massachusetts who sent the petition said Mifepristone has a safe track record and no deaths have been definitive linked to the drug. they are seeking to overturn three requirements:
* Prescriber certification, which they said deters providers from writing prescriptions because there names are added to national and local abortion provider lists, which may raise safety concerns.
* Patient agreement forms, which patients must sign attesting they intend to end their pregnancy.
* Pharmacy certification, which requires different tracking, shipping and reporting measures that they argue dissuade some pharmacies form carrying mifepristone.
..... "Federal restrictions on mifepristone are burdensome impediments to reproductive choice and are not based in science or medicine," Platkin said in a statement.
..... "The FDA has an opportunity to do the right thing and to eliminate barriers to access to this critical medication."
..... The petition comes six months after Governor Phil Murphy said in a speech that New Jersey would stockpile mifpristone and distribute pills to providers to create a strategic reserve of at least six months.
..... An executive with New Jersey Rights to Life did not immediately respond to a request for comment.