FDA Nominee’s Disregard For Safety Will Put Women's Lives At Risk

CURE joins letter urging Senators to oppose FDA nomination

Washington, D.C. – Today the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a policy and research center dedicated to fighting poverty and seeking solutions for black families to grow and their communities to flourish, joined a joint coalition letter urging U.S. Senators to oppose the radical nomination of Dr. Robert Califf for Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The letter, signed by Star Parker, CURE Founder and President and Director of Governmental Relations, Marty Dannenfelser, raises alarm over Dr. Califf’s past record at the FDA in the Obama Administration concerning chemical abortions. Under his direction, the FDA removed a requirement of reporting severe, life-threatening events for chemical abortion. 

“Until 2016, the Risk Evaluation and Management Strategies (REMS) for chemical abortion required the reporting of severe, life-threatening, and fatal adverse events. Under the direction of Califf, this requirement was altered to require that only fatal adverse events be reported. Califf approved this change despite thousands of adverse event reports already having been submitted to the FDA under the REMS,” says the letter. 

“Dr. Califf’s intentional weakening of reporting and safety requirements of chemical abortions will put more women’s lives at risk, especially in minority communities,” said Parker. “For an administration who claims to care about women’s health and follow the science, Califf’s record shows the opposite.”  

Weakening requirements flies in the face of previous data showing hundreds of life-threatening events, and more than 2,000 severe health events in a given year. All this achieves is a further concealment of this data to the women unaware of the risk they are taking with a chemical abortion.

The abortion industry has sought to use COVID-19 to their advantage, pushing to expand abortion through telemedicine. As the letter notes, the FDA removed the in-person requirement for chemical abortion in 2021. With Dr. Califf at the helm, the FDA will be well situated to authorize unsafe mail-order abortion pills.

The letter notes serious flaws in available data on chemical abortions, including a Medicaid study finding that more than 60% of chemical abortion-related emergency room visits were miscoded as miscarriages.

CURE is a policy and research center dedicated to fighting poverty and restoring dignity through messages of faith, freedom and personal responsibility. 

You can find the letter here. For more information, please go to CUREpolicy.org or contact [email protected].                                   ##