Experts urge U.S. to test abortion pill

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - An abortion pill widely used in Europe but forbidden in America should be rapidly evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration without further clinical trials, a panel of experts said yesterday.

The committee of the National Academy of Sciences said the abortion pill RU-486 has been so extensively tested in France, Britain and Sweden that the FDA should expedite consideration of the drug for marketing in the United States.

Some in the FDA already have been thinking along those lines. In a letter to a congressman, made public last December, FDA deputy commissioner Carol R. Scheman said that the agency would welcome an application from a drug company for the marketing of RU-486 and that the agency possibly could find that European testing was enough to permit a full FDA review without more trials.