Re: Cytotec-another viewpoint - long!
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Sat Oct 28 18:37:31 2000
"No matter how you slice it, it still comes out baloney."
Al Smith
art
At Sat, 28 Oct 2000, RModugno@aol.com wrote:
>
>Just to stir the yogurt a bit!
>
>The Birth Love Column
>by Leilah McCracken
>leilah@birthlove.com
>
>Cytotec and More: Letters, Comments and a Column
>
>Cytotec, an ulcer drug used off-label by many doctors (and
>nurse-midwives) to induce labor, is currently under
>governmental scrutiny. And though it is not in any way
>approved for obstetrical use by its manufacturer or the FDA,
>doctors are defiantly continuing to use it; they are even
>braggartly in their continued use of it.
>
>Following are excerpts of letters written by spokespersons
>both for Searle- Cytotec's manufacturer, and ACOG- the
>American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists;
>afterwards is a column.
>
>---
>(Letter written to doctors by Searle:)
>
>August 23, 2000
>
>IMPORTANT DRUG WARNING CONCERNING UNAPPROVED USE OF
>INTRAVAGINAL OR ORAL MISOPROSTOL IN PREGNANT WOMEN FOR
>INDUCTION OF LABOR OR ABORTION
>
>Dear Health Care Provider:
>
>Cytotec administration...can cause abortion. Cytotec is not
>approved for the induction of labor or abortion.
>
>..Serious adverse events reported following off-label use
>of Cytotec in pregnant women include maternal or fetal
>death; uterine hyperstimulation, rupture or perforation
>requiring uterine surgical repair, hysterectomy or
>salpingo-oophorectomy; amniotic fluid embolism; severe
>vaginal bleeding, retained placenta, shock, fetal
>bradycardia and pelvic pain.
>
>..Searle has not conducted research concerning the use of
>Cytotec for cervical ripening prior to termination of
>pregnancy or for induction of labor, nor does Searle intend
>to study or support these uses...the effect of Cytotec on
>the later growth, development and functional maturation of
>the child when Cytotec is used for induction of labor or
>cervical ripening has not been established.
>
>Searle promotes the use of Cytotec only for its approved
>indication. Further information may be obtained by calling
>1-800-323-4204.
>
>Michael Cullen, MD
>Medical Director, U.S.
>Searle
>
>---
>(Letter written to US government representatives in defense
>of Cytotec by ACOG, with comments by me in brackets:)
>
>October 11, 2000
>
>Dear Senator Hutchinson and Representative Coburn:
>
>..Misoprostol has been used for many years to induce labor
>in women ready, but unable, to deliver healthy babies
>without assistance. ["Unable"- could this man have an orgasm
>if I were holding him at knife-point? The threat of drugs
>and surgery to many trying-to-birth women do indeed feel
>like- truly are!- "knife-point". The only thing "unable to
>deliver" is the current hospital birth factory!]
>Misoprostol, in these cases, helps ensure the delivery of
>healthy babies and helps ensure the health and the life of
>the mother, both by bringing the pregnancy to a safe
>conclusion and by helping to prevent post-delivery
>hemorrhaging. [Note how many times he says "health" in this
>letter- saying the word does not bring it about... if he
>cared about "health" of mother and child, why would he
>choose to continue to use this drug? And inducing birth
>causes hemorrhage... the fine doctor must surely know
>this...? "Soft" words like "health" and "safe" do not make
>labor inductions soft, healthful OR safe!]
>
>In November 1999, ACOG's Committee on Obstetric Practice
>published a Committee Opinion (#228), Induction of Labor
>with Misoprostol, that endorsed the use of intravaginal
>misoprostol tablets to induce labor in pregnant women with
>unfavorable cervices. ["Unfavorable"? Cervixes just want to
>snap up tight in resistance of the doctors' meddlesome
>fingers! Birth becomes favorable when it is not prodded and
>poked so unfavorably.]
>
>The Committee recently reviewed the FDA data on adverse
>events and other available scientific and clinical data in
>light of Searle's warning. After this careful and extensive
>review [yah, right], the Committee stands by its November
>1999 recommendation on the use of misoprostol as a safe and
>effective drug when used to induce labor and ensure the
>delivery of healthy babies. [There's that "healthy" word
>again. Although how it can apply to possible bradycardia or
>death in babies I don't know...]
>
>Sincerely,
>Ralph W. Hale, MD, FACOG
>Executive Vice President
>
>[text in brackets done, with sincerity, by Leilah McCracken,
>GMPWA (Grand Multipara With Attitude)]
>
>---
>(Now the column...)
>
>Only a Devil Would Still Use Cytotec
>
>I was talking to a woman today who is 29 weeks pregnant with
>her first child. Her principle question was "how do I avoid
>a cesarean section?" (She had "millions" of other concerns,
>though she had just seen her doctor. Funny- pregnant women
>always have "millions" of questions and concerns, but rarely
>get them addressed by their busy, rushed, often impersonal
>doctors.) I told her the best way to avoid a section is by
>not giving birth in a place where an operating room is just
>down the hall. Will she listen and give birth at home?- I
>don't know. I do know, however, that her birth at the local
>hospital where I had my fifth child will most likely be be
>managed hyper-medically, and fraught with dangerous and
>invasive, unproven procedures. (As most North American
>births are, really.)
>
>Anyway: many ACOG members just looooove Cytotec. Love it so
>much, in fact, that they are disregarding drug company
>warnings and governmental scrutiny in favor of its use on
>pregnant women. Pregnant women! Again, the obstetrical cash
>cows of modern medicine: herded like cows; as profitable as
>cows; as big-eyed, dopey and naive as cows as they are
>herded from waiting room to slaughterhouse. Pregnant women!!
>I love them so much I want to fly- nay, teleport!!- to every
>birth so I can slap fiddling, wounding hands away from women
>and keep them safe for their births. No one else seems to be
>there to do it for most of them! It kills me to know what's
>happening to them, the women with "What to Expect When
>You're Expecting" indelibly imprinted on their minds and
>souls. Acquiescence; gullibility; "ask your doctor"; drop
>your knees to whatever Big Daddy Doctor (and the Big Mommy
>Doctor he dominates) wants to shove into you- even if it
>makes your uterus rupture and your baby die... doctors know
>full well that Cytotec kills. They know full well it makes
>uteruses rupture... only a devil wouldn't care about the
>harm such a drug causes.
>
>In Marsden Wagner's brilliant article "Technology in Birth-
>First Do No Harm" there is mention of one doctor who loves
>Cytotec so much that he raves about it to his online
>doctors' club- how it makes the cervix positively "mushie".
>(mushie... the doctor risks maternal and fetal injury and
>death in the pursuit of a "mushie" cervix...) But why the
>want for a mushie cervix in the first place?- a fast birth.
>And this is such an important point to make- the whole of
>obstetrics is founded on procedures and interventions that
>expedite the medical birth attendants' jobs, but offer
>little benefit and bring outright harm to women (episiotomy
>being the most infamous example) and babies. The Hippocratic
>Oath certainly does not apply to obstetrics, a field of
>medicine that exists solely to control and "correct"
>women... the "harm" in "do no harm" cuts women to the
>deepest cores of their beings.
>
>The doctors have told us that Cytotec is here for good. In
>the absence of massive lawsuits or fantastic acts of God,
>they will continue to harm birth for their own monetary and
>egotistical gain. ACOG has shown us, in their flamboyant
>dismissal of Cytotec research and warnings, that they cannot
>be trusted with the lives of women and babies; that they are
>more interested in justifying their own careers and their
>reactive, tinny positions as the societal gods of birth than
>in genuinely finding out what the best way for women to give
>birth really is. (And they will continue to help hunt down,
>persecute and imprison the women who really do know what the
>best way to give birth is- the lay midwives.) And drug
>companies, despite their benevolent-sounding warnings, will
>continue to sell drugs to the very doctors whom they warn
>against.
>
>To avoid a section, stay away from where they do sections.
>To avoid a drugged and hazardous childbirth, stay away from
>the executors of drugged and hazardous childbirth. Women-
>stay home to give birth! Stay away from practitioners who
>will manipulate your pregnancies and births as ways to
>justify their own jobs. The harm that has come from the
>medical establishment to birthing families is
>incalculable... like the Searle doctor said- "the effect of
>Cytotec on the later growth, development and functional
>maturation of the child when Cytotec is used for induction
>of labor or cervical ripening has not been established."
>Cytotec may be used as a metaphor for ALL obstetrical
>procedures- they are overwhelmingly unproven for women and
>babies; rarely administered with true informed consent;
>capable of causing great harm when administered by even the
>most well-trained obstetrical provider. The true devastation
>of medicalized birthing to individuals, society at large,
>and the spirit of birth that exists as soundly as birthing
>women themselves cannot even be fathomed. Only a devil would
>know the pain obstetrical procedures bring... and still
>continue to use them.
>
>What will bring an end to birth death?- (birth death: the
>replacing of female, glorious birth with medical nonsense)-
>women claiming birth for themselves. What will finally make
>doctors stop using Cytotec on women? Having no more women
>waiting for them on their examining tables. Women, can't you
>see this! Stop thinking your doctor only has your best
>interest at heart. You are secondary to his/her efficiency
>and profitability. It took me seven births to know the true
>nature of childbirth: its ease, trustworthiness and beauty.
>Don't take as long as I did. Stand up, for God's sake! Be
>strong! Get off your backs and retain your place as Mothers.
>Birth will only be healed when women say "my body, my baby,
>my birth!'- and mean it.
>
>There is one Voice, one Wisdom when it come to birth- that
>of birth. Mind the birth... never mind the doctors who
>endlessly, heartlessly, and thoughtlessly cut into it.
>
>For the full Text of Searle's and ACOG's letters, go here-
><http://www.birthlove.com/pages/acog_searle.html>
>
>"Technology in Birth- First Do No Harm"-
><http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/technologyinbirth.htm>
>
>More about obstetrical cash cows-
><http://www.birthlove.com/pages/bl_cols/moses.html>
>
>Resexualizing Childbirth-
><http://www.birthlove.com/pages/resex.html>
>
>****************************
>
>--
>****************************
>Robert Modugno MD MBA FACOG
>Marietta, GA
>
--
art fougner, md
A series of 1000 cases begins with but a single anecdote.
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