Kaiser Updates

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday by voice vote approved President Bush's nomination of acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to permanently head the agency, but potential holds to a full Senate vote on the nomination remain, the New York Times reports (Harris, New York Times, 9/21). Wesley Denton, press secretary for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), said recently that the senator plans to place a hold on von Eschenbach's nomination unless "immediate steps" are taken to remove Danco Laboratories' medical abortion drug Mifeprex from the market.

The Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday issued rules for a state law -- passed in 1995 but never enforced -- that requires parental notification for minors seeking abortions, the Chicago Tribune reports.

FDA on Wednesday announced it has updated the warning label on birth control patch Ortho Evra -- made by Ortho-McNeil, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson -- to include information from two conflicting studies on increased risk of blood clots among patch users, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who opposes abortion rights, on Wednesday is scheduled to announce he is introducing a bill that would aim to reduce the number of abortions by establishing health care- and child care-related programs to support pregnant women, Roll Call reports. The measure -- called the Pregnant Women Support Act -- is modeled after Democrats for Life of America's "95-10 Initiative," which aims to reduce the U.S. abortion rate by 95% over the next 10 years.

Many Australian physicians are not applying for permission to supply mifepristone to women in the country and instead are prescribing women a combination of methotrexate -- a drug licensed to treat cancer patients -- and misoprostol to induce a medical abortion, Caroline de Costa, a Cairns, Australia-based obstetrician, wrote in a letter to the editor in the Sept. 18 edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, Melbourne's Age reports.

Some abortion-rights advocates in Alabama say it has become increasingly difficult for abortion clinics to find local physicians who will serve as backups for abortion providers because of fears they will be targeted and harassed by abortion-rights opponents, AP/Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who supports abortion rights, on Monday during a speech at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., said both abortion-rights supporters and abortion-rights opponents sometimes use "misleading and unconstructive" language and urged both sides to find "common ground," on the issue, the Boston Globe reports.