Viagra Has A Higher Death Rate than RU486

The Washington Monthly wrote a brief article showing the death rate for RU486 and Viagra:

How dangerous is the "abortion pill"? Actually, it's not clear if it's killed anyone at all, but what if the worst is true and it turns out to be the culprit in all of the recent deaths in which it's been implicated?

Kerry Howley reports:
If Mifepristone turns out to be the cause of death in all five possible cases, (as one was ruled out completely) the pill's mortality rate will be under one in 100,000. Between 1988 and 1997 (before the abortion pill was approved) the mortality rate from legal induced abortion, according to the Centers for Disease Control, was 0.7 per 100,000.

....The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals cites a mortality rate of five per 100,000 for Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug, and as Dr. Paul Blumenthal, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, puts it, "That's a risk men are willing to take to have erections."

How long do you think a conservative congressman would stay in office if he seriously spearheaded an effort to ban Viagra? Six months?

Again, even if that all 5 deaths proved to be linked to RU-486, the rate would be under 1 to 100,000. Viagra has a 5 to 100,000 rate.

Yet no one is crying to have Viagra yanked.

BTW: Viagra is prescribed to men far outside of reproductive age. Yet the "no sex outside of procreation" crew isn't speaking out about it or asking it be banned from use.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_04/008624.php