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** Dubious Estimates of Medication Abortion Harms
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary have repeatedly promised an FDA review of mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion. They have referenced an April report from an anti-abortion group that claims to show a far higher rate of serious side effects from the drug than has been found previously.

But as Staff Writer Kate Yandell writes ([link removed]) , reproductive health experts say that the report, by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is not peer-reviewed research. It didn’t disclose where it got its data and has substantial methodological issues, they say.

Mifepristone is used alongside misoprostol for medication abortion and is FDA-approved for terminating pregnancies through 10 weeks of gestation. Serious side effects from medication abortion are rare. Medication abortions make up most abortions in the U.S. — 63% of them in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports reproductive rights.

In a Sept. 19 letter to Republican state attorneys general, Kennedy and Makary said the report indicated “potential dangers that may attend offering mifepristone without sufficient medical support or supervision.”

EPPC’s report claimed that mifepristone came with a serious adverse event rate of 10.93%, substantially higher than the rate of less than 0.5% reported on the drug’s FDA label.

As Kate explains, 263 reproductive health researchers wrote in an Aug. 27 response that “the report does not provide reliable evidence to support this claim, nor does any published literature.”

“Decades of conclusive scientific evidence amassed through more than one hundred rigorous studies based on hundreds of thousands of patient outcomes have overwhelmingly established the safety and effectiveness of mifepristone for medication abortion and management of early pregnancy loss,” the reproductive health researchers wrote in their letter.

The letter’s lead signer, Ushma Upadhyay, a public health social scientist at the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program, told Kate that the “largest issue” was that the EPPC report appeared to overcount emergency department visits as serious adverse events, even though it is known that people receiving medication abortions often visit the emergency department simply due to having questions about symptoms that turn out to be normal or wanting follow-up to see if they remain pregnant.

“Oftentimes, people will go to an ER when they don’t have another source of immediate care,” she said.

For more, see: “Trump Officials Cite Dubious Estimates of Medication Abortion Harms ([link removed]) .”
HOW WE KNOW
In writing about President Donald Trump's pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, we used the website Court Listener ([link removed]) to find court documents from the federal government's case against Zhao, who pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. Run by the nonprofit Free Law Project, CourtListener.com provides free access to legal opinions from federal and state courts. Read more: "Addressing Trump’s Claims About the Pardon of Binance Founder ([link removed]) ."
FEATURED FACT
Walmart said its 2025 Thanksgiving meal consisting of pre-selected products costs nearly $40, about 25% less than the $55 price last year. But this year's meal also includes fewer grocery items and different food brands. When comparing the same basket of items as the 2024 meal, there was a smaller decrease in price — 6.5% by our calculations, though prices may vary by location and sale prices. Read more: "Trump Serves a Misleading Thanksgiving Meal Statistic ([link removed]) ."
WORTHY OF NOTE
Science Editor Jessica McDonald spoke on a panel at the ScienceWriters2025 conference in Chicago this month. Jessie's panel was titled: "Communicating the truth about health in 2025 — Childhood vaccinations as a lens on misinformation."

The conference was hosted by the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

Jessie spoke about her work fact-checking false and misleading claims about childhood vaccines, a topic we've addressed a lot. You can find all of our articles about vaccination claims here ([link removed]) .

SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK
On Nov. 9, President Donald Trump posted ([link removed]) a graphic on Truth Social repeating a bogus claim we had written about months ago ([link removed]) . The claim -- that the Department of Government Efficiency had stopped yearly payments to former President Barack Obama for “royalties linked to Obamacare" -- was invented by a website that publishes fabricated political stories it describes as satirical. Our social media manager, Josh Diehl, highlighted the repeat claim in this video posted on our social media accounts.

[link removed]


** Wrapping Up
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Here's what else we've got for you this week:
* Trump Falsely Claims Democrats Want $1.5 Trillion for ‘Illegal Aliens’ ([link removed])
Over the course of the six-week shutdown, President Donald Trump repeatedly made the false claim that Democrats “want $1.5 trillion for health care for illegal aliens.”

* CDC Vaccine Panel Presentation Distorts Research on Safety of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines ([link removed])
A presentation by scientists on a work group for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel highlighted various alleged “safety uncertainties” of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, including those about cancer and changes to the immune system. Scientists, however, told us that many of the cited studies are either misconstrued or of poor quality.

Y lo que publicamos en español ([link removed]) (English versions are accessible in each story):
* Funcionarios de Trump citan estimaciones dudosas de daños tras abortos con medicamentos ([link removed])
Como justificación para una revisión por parte de la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos (FDA, por sus siglas en inglés) de un medicamento utilizado para abortar, dos funcionarios de salud de la administración Trump hicieron referencia a un informe publicado por un grupo antiaborto en abril que dice mostrar una tasa mucho mayor de efectos secundarios graves del medicamento de la que se había encontrado anteriormente. Sin embargo, el informe, que no es una investigación revisada por pares, no revela de dónde obtuvo sus datos y tiene problemas metodológicos sustanciales, según expertos en salud reproductiva.

* Trump afirma falsamente que los demócratas quieren 1,5 billones de dólares para “inmigrantes ilegales” ([link removed])
Durante las seis semanas del cierre de gobierno, que podría terminar pronto, el presidente Donald Trump ha afirmado repetidamente, de forma falsa, que los demócratas “quieren 1,5 billones de dólares para el cuidado médico de inmigrantes ilegales”.

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