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- FDA initiates safety study of abortion pill mifepristone, official confirms
- Putin ally advocates for nuclear weapons in vision for Russia’s future
- EU leaders meet Western Balkan states to discuss membership bid progress
- US lawmakers reach tentative agreement to avert government shutdown
- Mogadishu clashes exacerbate Somalia’s ongoing political crisis
- High-water levels to raise Saskatoon waterline by over half a metre
- House approves new Ukraine aid package as several Republicans join Democrats
- Astronomers find evidence of magnetic fields on distant exoplanets with high-speed winds
Hunt for Tube hero who gave blind man his shoes after he lost one through the gap The hunt is on find an ‘absolute hero’
Get you up to speed: FDA launches safety study for abortion pill mifepristone, source says
The Food and Drug Administration has initiated a safety study of the abortion pill mifepristone, as confirmed by a senior FDA official. The retrospective study will examine hundreds of thousands of cases, with interim results expected in July.
The Food and Drug Administration’s safety study of mifepristone will involve a retrospective analysis of hundreds of thousands of cases, with interim results expected in July. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily allowed the delivery of mifepristone through the mail while legal challenges continue regarding its distribution.
The Food and Drug Administration has initiated a safety study of mifepristone, with interim results expected by July, which may inform future restrictions on the medication. This follows renewed scrutiny after the Biden administration eased access protocols, amid ongoing legal challenges, including a lawsuit from Louisiana that contested mifepristone’s mail delivery.
What remains unclear — The timeline for the final results of the FDA’s safety study on mifepristone has not been specified.
FDA initiates safety study of abortion pill mifepristone, official confirms
The Food and Drug Administration has launched a safety study of the abortion pill mifepristone, a senior FDA official confirmed to WTX US News, a step that could create a path for the Trump administration to restrict access to the medication.
It will be a retrospective study of hundreds of thousands of cases, according to the official. The interim results of the study could be released in July, but the official noted the timing of the final results will depend on the design of a secondary analysis after the interim results come in.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the launch of the study.
Last September, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a letter to several Republican state attorneys general that the FDA was reviewing the safety of mifepristone.
At the time, Kennedy and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary wrote, “HHS — through the FDA — is conducting its own review of the evidence, including real-world outcomes and evidence, relating to the safety and efficacy of the drug.”
Yet Makary came under scrutiny from some Congressional Republicans and anti-abortion groups who believed the agency was dragging its feet on the study under his watch for political reasons.
The drug came under renewed scrutiny after the Biden administration issued a memorandum lifting restrictions that required the drug to be dispensed in-person and giving access to mifepristone via telehealth and by mail.
Last year, the state of Louisiana filed a lawsuit challenging the FDA’s decision to allow mifepristone to be delivered by mail.
On May 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily reinstated the rule requiring mifepristone to only be dispensed in person.
However, the following week, the Supreme Court set aside the lower court order and allowing, for now, mifepristone to continue to be delivered to patients through the mail while the Louisiana case plays out in the courts.
Mifepristone, which was first approved by the FDA in 2000 as a safe way to end early pregnancies, is typically taken with a second drug, misoprostol.
Asked last year whether a review of mifepristone could lead to a ban, WTX US News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder suggested it would be difficult for the FDA to withdraw approval, an extraordinary step that would quickly draw legal challenges.
However, Gounder said that depending on what the safety review finds, it could make access more difficult, limiting the drug’s availability through telehealth or by mail, or restricting the ability to prescribe it to doctors, rather than physician assistants or nurses who are also currently able to prescribe it.
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides
Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, yet the government’s 50% increase to the bus fare cap is a political choice, adding hundreds to annual costs.
To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
G20 waters down support for Ukraine amid pressure for peace talks
The Tech Titan Who Led His Company From a 68-Square-Foot Jail Cell
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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