When Is A Deadly Drug Not A Deadly Drug?

When it's used for inducing abortions, apparently:

Health officials are investigating whether there are any links in the cases of four California women — at least two in Los Angeles County — who have died since 2003 of massive infection after taking the so-called abortion pill, RU-486, and a follow-up drug.

The state and federal probe follows an announcement last month by the Food and Drug Administration, after the June death of a Sherman Oaks woman, warning doctors and patients of the potential for serious bacterial infection under certain circumstances.

At the heart of the inquiry in California are why and how the deadly infections developed and whether more women might have been harmed.

"That's something we don't have an explanation for right now," said Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is investigating the deaths along with the Food and Drug Administration, the California Department of Health Services and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

The FDA is also working with the makers of the two drugs to see if they were contaminated with an unusual bacterium found in the bloodstream of two of the women who died. Complicating matters, neither woman showed all of the usual symptoms of an infection.

The medical mystery in California is fueling the already charged debate over the risks, rights and morality of abortion.

RU-486, prescribed under the brand name Mifeprex, was approved by the FDA in 2000 over the strong objections of many abortion opponents. In recent weeks, opponents of the RU-486 regimen have renewed their call for the passage of Holly's Law, which would take the drug off the market in the U.S., arguing that there is no way it can be administered without risk.

Seems like DDT was pulled off the market for a lot less.