EXCLUSIVE: Think Tank Asks FDA for Documents About Abortion Pill

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Former Vice President Mike Pence’s think tank formally asked the Food and Drug Administration on Friday to turn over documents related to the dangers of the abortion pill, mifepristone.

Pence’s think tank, Advancing American Freedom, believes that the FDA took illegal shortcuts under previous administrations that led to its approval of a drug that was more dangerous than it had previously publicly acknowledged.

This comes as FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary told Politico he has “no preconceived plans” to change federal policies on mifepristone. But he promised to “continue to listen to folks that say they have concerns” about the drug.

Advancing American Freedom, filed a Freedom of Information Act request nearly a year ago for documents that Congress had requested from the FDA about the abortion drug on June 27, 1996, July 1, 1996, and Sept. 17, 1996.

After receiving no response from the FDA, Advancing American Freedom filed suit to compel its compliance with the request.

In its letter to the FDA on Friday, the think tank said, “We hope that these documents can be produced in the new [Trump] administration pursuant to our FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request without further proceedings in the courts.”

Advancing American Freedom cited the recent Ethics and Public Policy Center study exposing that nearly 11% of women who take mifepristone “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion,” which is 22 times higher than previous FDA reports indicated.

“Thank you for pledging to conduct a thorough review of the safety and efficacy of mifepristone in light of the groundbreaking Ethics and Public Policy Center study exposing the very high rates of serious adverse events for women who have used the drug,” the letter reads.

The think tank believes the documents requested by Congress long ago still exist.

“As you undertake a comprehensive review of mifepristone, we believe that the documents we are seeking will be critical to the understanding of the illegal shortcuts undertaken by the FDA under previous administrations that led to the approval of a drug with a much more dangerous event profile than publicly acknowledged by your predecessors,” the letter says.