Do Women Have Fewer Patient's Rights Than Men?
There have been a lot of articles on the abortion pill RU-486 in many popular magazines and newspapers for quite a few years now. These articles describe the pill's success in Europe. No matter what you believe about the morality or the rightness of women using this pill, there is a very upsetting trend concerning women and drugs happening here. The FDA (Federal Drug Administration) may be concerned about whether RU-486 is safe enough to introduce in this country, but unfortunately, they seem to be even MORE worried about the bottom line.
The main reason companies in the US don't want to make the drug has little to do with safety.
Instead their reasons are political and financial. They are scared that anti-abortion groups may sabotage or threaten the company and its employees. They are worried that people who are against the drug will stop buying other drugs from their company. Many women are not able to afford (or are opposed to or unable to receive), an abortion. Many of these same women COULD afford a drug (and also be willing to take a drug) that will keep their pregnancy from taking.
Drugs that are for rare illnesses are treated in this same fashion. If there isn't enough profit in making the drug because too few people will buy it, companies often refuse to make it. Is this fair? And what about the fact that most medical studies are done on men? A woman's body reacts differently to medications and diet than a man's does. Quite often doctors are using statistics to treat women that were obtained from testing groups of men! Maybe it's time for women to be treated fairly when it comes to drugs and medicine. We DO live in a capitalist society, but no one should be denied available or proper treatment because of it.