How do you respond to those who say that taking mifepristone is “safer than taking Tylenol?”
Considered in terms of deaths per dose, it simply isn’t so. What you have here is a not-so-clever statistical sleight of hand. Advocates try to get you to compare the number of deaths from a relatively lightly used product with one that is used billions of times by people every year.
We are told that about 150 American die from Tylenol use every year, usually by overdose or simply taking too much over an extended period of time. At the same time, the FDA tells us that there have been 28 deaths that we know of among American mifepristone patients since the drug was approved in 2000.
So, 28 deaths from mifepristone in twenty years against 150 deaths from Tylenol in just a single year’s time? Sounds like mifepristone is safer.
But wait. That’s 150 Tylenol deaths against a backdrop of 25 billion doses of Tylenol in a year. We’re told that there have been only 5.6 million total chemical abortions with mifepristone in the U.S. since that 2000 approval. That is less than a thousandth of the sales of Tylenol in a single year.
Note what this does to your risk factor.
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Using the minimal figures provided by the FDA, your risk of dying from taking mifepristone is about 1 in 200,000. Not large, but not negligible. And remember that your risk of a complication putting you in the emergency room is closer to one in 10.
But your risk of death from Tylenol is actually something like one chance in 166.7 million, even including those who overdose and fail to follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
This means that your risk of dying from mifepristone is about 833 times your risk of dying from Tylenol!
The statement that mifepristone is safer than Tylenol is clearly false.
LifeNews.com Note: Randall O’Bannon, Ph.D., is the director of education and research for theNational Right to Life Committee.
