The news yesterday was dominated by the denial of Trump’s ridiculous “Presidential Immunity” claim and House GOP fails on two major votes. However, there was other hugely important news and access to abortion will be a major issue again this year. SCOTUS has a case that will determine the fate of the ability for women to obtain the so-called “abortion pill.” Medical abortions, a medication protocol is the most commonly used method for abortions. A fanatic federal judge in TX made an outrageous ruling (currently stayed) banning use of Mifepristone, and made a point of citing research in a medical journal in his opinion. Sage Publications has RETRACTED the relevant articles, saying they don’t meet the standards to be worthy of publication!
(Sage Journal bills itself as covering: Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology)
Let’s backtrack for a minute. Extremist, anti-abortion fanatics went judge shopping. A case regarding FDA and it’s approval process for any medication would be properly filed and considered in DC. However, the zealots knew that Mifepristone has been on the market for decades and is widely used with few cases resulting in harmful side effects. It’s as safe as any drug on the market. Like many medications, in time it was learned it could be used for “off brand” purposes. In other words a drug developed to do/treat one thing turns out to be effective and safe to use for a different purpose. So those who make a drug will go back to the FDA and obtain approval for said additional purposes.
That’s what happened with Mifepristone. It was learned it could be used as part of a two-drug “cocktail” to safely induce a medical abortion and became the most commonly used method for first trimester abortions. Safe, effective and a remarkably low number of complications occurred in it’s use. Well, for the “women are incubators” crowd that simply wouldn’t do. Women being able to safely have an abortion in their homes? Not having to pass through a gauntlet of fanatics screaming “BABY KILLER” and other vile invective at them? Oh hell no they thought. Then, with COVID since the drug had long proven safe women could obtain their prescriptions over the phone.
Again, that was something the freaks couldn’t tolerate but some of them were smart enough to know they’d lose any case they brought. Unless they could find a federal judge who was one of them. A fanatic. Who also was a hard-core RWNJ wet-dream who would happily issue an insanely bad and improper ruling he had no business making if it pleased hard core conservatives and pissed off Democrats and other reasonable, sane people. Enter federal District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. He’s a Trump appointee forced through by McConnell and became conservative judge shoppers “go to” guy. And boy did he deliver on this one as this tidbit from the Wikipedia link states:
In 2023, he presided over a lawsuit regarding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of abortion medication mifepristone in 2000, and had issued a preliminary ruling suspending the approval of the drug, marking the first time a court tried to invalidate the approval of a drug over the FDA’s objection.[3]
The whole thing is on appeal and given the makeup of SCOTUS who knows what will happen in the end? I have no doubt the votes are there to continue gutting women’s reproductive freedom and denying them access to abortion. Their problem is that upholding Kacsmaryk’s ruling would create a free-for-all. It would effectively strip the FDA’s authority to do its job. How however they have an off ramp.
As this short article from MSNBC states the “medical experts/studies” on which Kacsmaryk hung his ruling have been repudiated. It notes as I said earlier on Monday Sage Publications On Monday, Sage Publications made its announcement and provided some details on why:
Sage found, for example, that with a 2021 study cited by Kacsmaryk, all but one of the eight authors were affiliated with an anti-abortion advocacy organization “despite having declared they had no conflicts of interest.” The investigation also discovered that a peer reviewer who initially reviewed that study had been affiliated with one of those groups — the Charlotte Lozier Institute — as well. (The lead author of the three articles, James Studnicki, told Retraction Watch that the retractions were “a blatant attempt to discredit excellent research which is incongruent with a preferred abortion narrative.”)
That’s the short, layperson’s version that addresses the political aspect of this. However I was curious. Since there was a link that let me go straight to the source I clicked on it and got to the actual announcement. And though WOW! If you care about this, I urge you to take a couple of minutes as it gives SCOTUS all it needs to overturn Kacsmaryk and preserve the FDA’s authority. It’s not like SCOTUS won’t be given plenty of other chanced to deny women choice. In what at the start is clearly marked as a Retraction Notice there’s a paragraph that addresses the conflict of interest issues.
Now, some might claim (the RWNJ’s sure as hell will) that this is just “baby killers” trying to “cancel” “honest, dedicated scientists/researches” but anticipating (I think) that charge Sage lays it out plainly:
Post-publication peer review
Two subject matter experts undertook an independent post-publication peer review of the three articles anew. In the 2021 and 2022 articles, which rely on the same dataset, both experts identified fundamental problems with the study design and methodology, unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions, material errors in the authors’ analysis of the data, and misleading presentations of the data that, in their opinions, demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and invalidate the authors’ conclusions in whole or in part. In the 2019 article, which relies on a different dataset, both experts identified unsupported assumptions and misleading presentations of the findings that, in their opinions, demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and render the authors’ conclusion unreliable.
Retraction decision
Based on the results of the investigation, the post-publication peer reviews, and COPE standards, Sage and the Journal Editor retracted these articles.
Not only are federal judges appointed for LIFE, plaintiffs can “shop” for a favorable judge. The ruling would depend on jurisdiction. One judge or panel could say “yes” while another elsewhere would say ‘no”. This is nuts.
I know this is about abortion but my example shows how THE AMERICAN PUBLIC TOLERATES LIES PUT INTO LAW! The LaGuardia report and tens of millions experience with cannabis showed there’s no such thing as lethal overdose, and, in fact, is a natural plant used for at least 30,000 years with no such example of harm. The tobacco, etoh, pesticides, chemical companies, fossil fuels and pharmaceutical industries have killed or harmed hundreds of millions of us, including taking us to the brink of extinction. We allowed a criminal traitor Nixon, who knew why he was putting it in schedule one, to arrest black people fed up with Jim crow America and Vietnam War protesters. FACT!!!! That makes ANYONE EVER ARRESTED FOR CANNABIS A POLITICAL PRISONER IN AMERICA! The purveyors of death got rich and the cannabis users got criminal records locking many out of jobs. IT’S STILL GOING ON. 700,000 PER YEAR ARE STILL BEING ARRESTED, mostly casual users, 7 out of 10 black and brown folks. This is an example of an ongoing POLITICAL CRIME against the citizens. Yet the voters sit on our collective asses drinking and smoking cigarettes driving up death, disease and the cost of heathcare. Its been going on over half a century!!!! No wonder Trump stole the top political office. No wonder we have traitors in congress undoing what 400,000 boys died to save in the mid forties. WE ARE A COUNTRY BASICALLY RUN BY THE RICH ASSHOLES WHO USE THE REST OF US BECAUSE WE’RE TOO PHUCKING STUPID TO VOTE WITH THE TRUTH!! Women are lucky to have any rights at all…after all many voted these assholes into power AND WILL DO IT AGAIN!!! Anyone who talks shit about the citizens of North Korea, Russia, or Saudi Arabia needs to take a good hard look in the mirror. We lock up more citizens for unjustified reasons than they do! FACT! Good luck with the abortion issue…you’ll need it!
Don’t forget Harry J. Anslinger’s contribution. He was in a pissing match with J. Edgar, but racism was a beeeg part of choosing pot to pass laws against.
Now of course there’s the prison/industrial complex going, with slave/near slave labor provided to all kinds of industries. Especially food and ag. Just found out that Eggland’s and Land O’ Lakes use prison labor.
Every day my mind gets blown again by how citizens get ripped off in this country.
He once testified UNDER OATH he tried it, turned into a bat and flew across the room. He was Morgan’s, the NYC big banker’s son in law. Morgan handled Randolph Hearst’s moneyed empire…remember his bullshit propaganda film Reefer Madness, Hearst produced, which indicated if you smoked the Mexican weed, you’d go insane and murder your family with an axe! Hearst owned millions of acres of timber for paper production. Hemp, which was illegal NOT TO GROW when Washington and Jefferson ran the show, was a potential threat. By the way the original Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. This place can get on a person’s last phucking nerve given the mass stupidity, indifference and selfishness.
buddy, you are wrong. in every single way. I would be embarrassed if I commented what you commented because of how incorrect it is.
An incredibly safe drug, one that is considerably safer than forced birthing, is cited by forced birthers as being less than safe. WTF is wrong with these people? Oh wait, I remember now–they hate women.
And “their” (as much I hate using that term in referring to anybody!) WOMEN stand on the campaign platform or on the stage of tRump’s “hate fest,” grinning and clapping, glassy-eyed because “their” MEN” did something good by banishing them to become faceless wombs with ONE job in life, to bring to term every infant, skull in tact or not, so those babies can grow up to get killed in third grade in a school shooting. And then those same WOMEN stand on a gun lobby platform or on a tRump “hate fest” stage grinning and clapping while still grieving for those babies they brought to term so they can get shot in third grade because those same MEN refuse to do anything reasonable about gun safety because we all know “those” MEN have to have their human brood mares and their phallic symbol BIG GUNS to make them feel like REAL STUDS.
True!
actually, they are scared shit of women!