1 00:00:18,359 --> 00:00:22,519 We're back with another edition of The Federalist or Radio Hour. I'm Emma Lajashinsky, 2 00:00:22,559 --> 00:00:25,160 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the 3 00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:29,760 show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST, 4 00:00:30,039 --> 00:00:33,280 make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course the 5 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:37,840 premium version of the Federalist dot Com as well. I'm happy to be joined 6 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:42,679 today by Tessa Longbon. She's a senior research associate over at the Charlotte Loadsier 7 00:00:42,679 --> 00:00:49,280 Institute and has a really interesting story about kind of a broad issue but also 8 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:53,759 in this case, a very particular case study. So Tessa, thank you 9 00:00:53,799 --> 00:00:57,479 for joining the program. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited 10 00:00:57,479 --> 00:01:00,759 to be here. Of course, this this case study that I just mentioned 11 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,239 is depressing, mind blowing, all of that in one. Before we get 12 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:08,680 into it, Tesla, could you tell us just a little bit about your 13 00:01:08,719 --> 00:01:14,079 background and how you ended up working in research at the Charlotte Lovesier Institute. 14 00:01:15,439 --> 00:01:19,760 Of course, yes, so I have been with the Charlotte Losure Institute for 15 00:01:19,799 --> 00:01:25,400 almost seven years now. Like you said, I'm a senior research associate and 16 00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:32,159 so I do a lot of research on abortion and in particular drug induced abortion 17 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:37,680 and its impact on women. And here at Charlotte Losure, we're a pro 18 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:42,200 life research organization and we're named after doctor Charlotte Losuer, who was one of 19 00:01:42,239 --> 00:01:48,120 the first woman doctors in the US and she was known both for her advocacy 20 00:01:48,159 --> 00:01:52,040 for women and her commitment to truth, and so we want to carry on 21 00:01:52,159 --> 00:01:56,200 the spirit of her mission. And we believe in the dignity and value of 22 00:01:56,519 --> 00:01:59,959 human life, and we also believe in truth and so we know that, 23 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:05,879 but research on the abortion issue has been extremely opaque, and it's also been 24 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,479 largely controlled by abortion advocates for decades, and so we want to be the 25 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:16,479 counter to that. And we're composed of a network of scholars who are experts 26 00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:22,599 in different fields. We have scientists, public health researchers, medical doctors, 27 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:27,319 and we collaborate on research work together, and we want to do the research 28 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:30,879 that no one else is doing, you know, And this is where it 29 00:02:30,879 --> 00:02:34,039 gets really interesting, because if you're gut mocker, you can do as much 30 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:38,159 research as you want and you're not going to face the pressures that Charlotte Lasuer 31 00:02:38,159 --> 00:02:42,879 will face and U test will face in particular, so let's dive into this 32 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,240 recent case study regarding stage journals, which a lot of people will be sort 33 00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:53,759 of familiar with as an academic paper. Academic I guess a publisher more broadly, 34 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:55,960 and you might have something to add to that, Tessa, But it 35 00:02:57,080 --> 00:03:04,360 turned out that they were retracting Charlotte Laser studies. Once that you are listed 36 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:06,879 as an author on, can you tell us a little bit, just give 37 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:13,960 us the background on the sort of battle between between Sage and Charlotte Loasure and 38 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,879 probably a little bit about the timing would be helpful too, because that's very 39 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:23,280 very interesting. Yes, No, it's definitely, it's all very interesting. 40 00:03:23,039 --> 00:03:30,159 The timing is striking, and even taking a step back further and looking at 41 00:03:30,159 --> 00:03:34,000 the studies themselves, what it was that we researched, why we chose to 42 00:03:34,039 --> 00:03:38,080 do what we did. This is all happening in an environment where we have 43 00:03:38,719 --> 00:03:45,400 very little data. The data that's out there is flawed studying the topic of 44 00:03:45,439 --> 00:03:50,520 abortion. We have states like California that don't report any abortion data at all, 45 00:03:50,919 --> 00:03:54,520 and so we're missing huge chunks in the abortion data in the US, 46 00:03:55,199 --> 00:04:02,719 and we have the FDA only counting debt as adverse events. No other complications 47 00:04:03,159 --> 00:04:10,599 are required to be reported to FDA, and in this environment, the research 48 00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:15,920 that is available on abortion very there's far less than meets the eye. There 49 00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:21,680 are huge gaps, it's very piecemeal, and so we wanted our team here 50 00:04:21,680 --> 00:04:27,319 at Loisure Institute wanted to get an idea of what was going on. We 51 00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:31,839 wanted to know how abortion was impacting women's health, and specifically we wanted to 52 00:04:31,879 --> 00:04:39,639 look at surgical versus drug induced abortion and how that was impacting women and how 53 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:43,879 often women were ending up in the emergency room, because surprisingly that's something that 54 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:47,720 we don't know a lot about. And the best data that's available to us 55 00:04:47,959 --> 00:04:56,000 is Medicaid, because through Medicaid, we have deidentified all of the data on 56 00:04:56,839 --> 00:05:02,199 women's interactions with the healthcare system. As long as you state tax dollars through 57 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:06,399 Medicaid paid for the abortion, paid for follow up care, paid for all 58 00:05:06,399 --> 00:05:11,120 the healthcare, we can see all of that claims data, and so we 59 00:05:11,199 --> 00:05:16,000 can see this trajectory of how it's impacting women's health. And so for this 60 00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:24,879 particular study, we started with each drug induced and surgical abortion that was in 61 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,759 our Medicaid data set nineteen ninety nine or twenty fifteen. It was the most 62 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,879 recent year of data that we had when we published this study, and we 63 00:05:31,959 --> 00:05:39,120 followed each woman out for thirty days after the abortion to see how many times, 64 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:42,839 how many women were ending up in the emergency room. And what we 65 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:47,439 found was that drug induced abortions were more likely to send women to the er 66 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:53,920 than were surgical abortions, and rates of er visits for both types of abortion 67 00:05:54,360 --> 00:06:00,040 have been increasing dramatically. And so we published this study in a journal that 68 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:04,000 is owned by by Stage, like you mentioned, and published it almost three 69 00:06:04,079 --> 00:06:08,920 years ago. It's been one of the top read articles in the journal. 70 00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:15,439 It's been cited in court cases, and you know, prominently read until last 71 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:23,160 week when, like you mentioned, it was retracted by the journal for a 72 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:29,399 few different issues. But definitely interesting timing with all of this happening in the 73 00:06:29,439 --> 00:06:42,959 midst of some ongoing court cases challenging FDA regulations of abortion drugs. Right, 74 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,519 I mean this is cited in a Supreme Court case that's set to go to 75 00:06:46,639 --> 00:06:51,279 oral arguments fairly soon, is there, Tessa, What is your impression of 76 00:06:51,319 --> 00:06:56,040 how this process usually goes about? Timing wise with Sage, you know, 77 00:06:56,160 --> 00:07:00,839 retracting articles, It seemed you know, what could you maybe like a little 78 00:07:00,879 --> 00:07:04,639 bit about the time between when the articles were published and when SAGE made this 79 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:09,879 decision. Basically, yes, well, it's hard to say what the normal 80 00:07:09,959 --> 00:07:15,040 timing is because this is really unprecedented as far as anyone on our team is 81 00:07:15,079 --> 00:07:20,160 concerned. We've never experienced anything like this before, although unfortunately it seems to 82 00:07:20,199 --> 00:07:27,399 becoming more and more common with just the general environment that we're in and how 83 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:34,079 science has changed. But we certainly have been disappointed by how the process has 84 00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:40,560 gone. After a couple of years after the study was published, a few 85 00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:46,279 months ago, we heard from SAGE that they had received a complaint about the 86 00:07:46,279 --> 00:07:50,319 study from one of their readers, who, at the time we didn't know 87 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:57,800 what was since been identified in the media as an openly pro abortion professor of 88 00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:05,959 pharmaceutical sciences, and Stage raised a few issues about the study. They alleged 89 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:11,360 that we had undisclosed conflicts of interest because we work many of us are affiliated 90 00:08:11,399 --> 00:08:16,519 with Charlotte Leasure Institute, which is a pro life research organization, and they 91 00:08:16,639 --> 00:08:24,680 raised some questions about the methodology of the study, and so we responded to 92 00:08:26,439 --> 00:08:31,399 both of those issues, you know, explained that we don't have any undeclared 93 00:08:31,440 --> 00:08:37,799 conflict of interests. We were very open about our affiliation with Charlotte Leasure Institute, 94 00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:41,919 that Charlotte Leasure Institute had funded the study, and that the really the 95 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:48,720 methodological issues were not really issues at all. There's always a million ways that 96 00:08:48,759 --> 00:08:54,600 a study can be done, but certainly the issues that Stage had did not 97 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:58,639 affect our findings in any way. They weren't challenging our analyzes or our data, 98 00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:03,240 or any of the findings of the study. So we sent all of 99 00:09:03,279 --> 00:09:09,840 that to STAGE and then didn't hear back for a long time, and then 100 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:15,960 finally Stage let us know that they were moving forward to retract not just that 101 00:09:16,039 --> 00:09:20,919 study but two other studies of ours that were also published in the same journal, 102 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:26,559 because they said that there had been a breakdown in the peer review process. 103 00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:31,080 And so back when we had submitted these articles for publication, they had 104 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:37,159 been reviewed by anonymous reviewers who offered criticism and feedback that we incorporated into the 105 00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:43,240 articles made them stronger, more robust, before they ultimately recommended to the editor 106 00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:50,159 that the articles be published, and Stage let us know that one of the 107 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:54,679 reviewers was affiliated with Loisure Institute. Well, that was news to us, 108 00:09:54,799 --> 00:10:01,320 because the entire peer review process is double an eye. We don't know who 109 00:10:01,320 --> 00:10:05,919 the reviewers are. The reviewers don't know who we are, and so if 110 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:09,679 there was a problem with it, there's nothing that we could have done to 111 00:10:09,879 --> 00:10:13,000 prevent that. That's, you know, all within the purview of Stage and 112 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:20,559 the journal. But because of that, Stage decided to re review all three 113 00:10:20,639 --> 00:10:28,960 studies and then raised some of these pretty insubstantial challenges to the methodologies, but 114 00:10:28,799 --> 00:10:35,240 again didn't challenge the findings or point to any errors that would that would render 115 00:10:35,279 --> 00:10:41,919 the findings invalid, and so throughout the entire process, it was just kind 116 00:10:41,919 --> 00:10:50,519 of disheartening and discouraging that we weren't able to have a true back and forth 117 00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:56,600 as to the actual merits of the science, but were instead left largely in 118 00:10:56,639 --> 00:11:01,039 the dark about how the investigation was proceeding and who was a valuating our work. 119 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:03,919 And as a researcher, can you talk to us maybe a bit about 120 00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:09,320 the significance of SAGE, because it's my understanding that Stage is very powerful and 121 00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:16,559 it's meaningful then that SAGE took the step and what appears to be a highly 122 00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:20,320 politically charged decision, So what does it mean that this came from Sage, 123 00:11:20,399 --> 00:11:24,000 you know, of all the different places it could come from. Well, 124 00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:31,720 Sage is a publishing company that owns many, many different journals, and there 125 00:11:31,799 --> 00:11:39,919 are several different publishing companies that own and operate these academic journals and publishing in 126 00:11:39,960 --> 00:11:48,559 a peer reviewed journal that's opposed to safeguard the whole scientific publishing process. The 127 00:11:48,679 --> 00:11:54,480 idea is that you're receiving feedback from your peers, people who with the expert 128 00:11:54,799 --> 00:12:03,720 knowledge, who can offer substantial and useful criticism that will make your paper stronger, 129 00:12:03,919 --> 00:12:09,440 that will prevent bad science from getting published, and we'll make sure that 130 00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:16,919 everything is valid and reliable. And so to have a public publishing company that 131 00:12:18,039 --> 00:12:26,919 owns so many of these journals taking this very dramatic step of retraction based on 132 00:12:26,519 --> 00:12:35,440 some pretty insubstantial reasons is concerning because researchers need to be able to trust that 133 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,879 they're going to get a fair hearing, that they can trust the peer review 134 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:46,720 process and trust the impartiality of the journal that they're publishing in, and the 135 00:12:46,759 --> 00:12:48,679 general public needs to know that too. They need to be able to know 136 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:56,159 that everything that's getting published, that's getting published as science, is trustworthy and 137 00:12:56,240 --> 00:13:01,159 it's being evaluated based on its merits, not based on anyone's opinions, and 138 00:13:01,279 --> 00:13:07,039 so to see this process breaking down is really concerning, especially when it's happening 139 00:13:07,519 --> 00:13:16,240 in such a large and powerful organization. Doesn't bode well for science as a 140 00:13:16,279 --> 00:13:24,759 whole. Does our border have turnstiles and velvet ropes? The Watch Dot on 141 00:13:24,799 --> 00:13:28,200 Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between 142 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:33,240 politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. Some Republicans are chouting 143 00:13:33,279 --> 00:13:37,559 a bill with a limit of five thousand migrants per day. That's still one 144 00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:41,720 point eight million per year. An amusement park doesn't let more people in when 145 00:13:41,759 --> 00:13:43,879 it hits capacity. Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, 146 00:13:43,879 --> 00:13:48,120 it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street 147 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:50,879 podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 148 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:58,679 Now, can you tell us a little bit You've gone into this, 149 00:13:58,799 --> 00:14:03,519 but could you tell us a little bit more about the findings themselves? You 150 00:14:03,519 --> 00:14:07,759 know of these three studies because it's a lot of it's a lot of information 151 00:14:09,039 --> 00:14:15,360 the media downplays or outright ignores or seeks to undermine in different ways, so 152 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:22,039 people actually might not be familiar with some of the information that your research presents. 153 00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:26,320 So could you talk to us just about the findings of these three papers. 154 00:14:26,879 --> 00:14:31,080 Yes, definitely. And so these three studies, two of them are 155 00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:37,120 connected, and then one of them is a completely unrelated study that one looked 156 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:43,879 at abortion providers in Florida. We chose Florida because of the information that's available 157 00:14:43,919 --> 00:14:50,600 from their medical board on provider details that allowed us to see some of these 158 00:14:50,799 --> 00:14:56,240 characteristics of the abortion providers, and we looked at their use of well whether 159 00:14:56,320 --> 00:15:01,600 they had hospital admitting privileges, were able to admit patients directly to the hospital, 160 00:15:01,919 --> 00:15:05,679 and then of those that did, what their admissions looked like, how 161 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:13,440 many patients they were admitting for what reasons, and the general characteristics of the 162 00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:20,519 providers, their age, their educational background, and details like had they ever 163 00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:26,320 received and email practice claims, things like that. And it was designed to 164 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:31,559 be an exploratory study, kind of a jumping off point for future research because 165 00:15:33,039 --> 00:15:39,360 there's very little research that's been done on abortion providers and whether they have hospital 166 00:15:39,399 --> 00:15:45,039 admitting privileges, and so we were hoping that that would serve as a foundation 167 00:15:45,639 --> 00:15:50,159 for subsequent research down the line, both from US and from other researchers. 168 00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:56,799 And then the other two studies, The first one is the highest profile one 169 00:15:56,840 --> 00:16:02,320 and the one that started all this looking at Medicaid data and focusing in on 170 00:16:02,879 --> 00:16:10,320 emergency room visits after abortion. And we decided to look at er visits because 171 00:16:10,519 --> 00:16:17,759 it's a really good comprehensive way to see how abortion is impacting women's health in 172 00:16:17,799 --> 00:16:21,240 the short term. And so we took, I guess, kind of a 173 00:16:21,279 --> 00:16:26,320 funnel approach to how we looked at these er visits. We would start with 174 00:16:26,679 --> 00:16:30,519 an abortion. We knew the abortion had taken place, it was there in 175 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,799 the code, that Medicaid had been built for it, and then we would 176 00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:40,840 follow that out for thirty days and capture all the emergency room visits that occurred. 177 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:45,200 And we found that over the course of the study period, and we 178 00:16:45,279 --> 00:16:52,240 compared twenty two to twenty fifteen, because that's when abortion drugs really began to 179 00:16:52,279 --> 00:16:59,159 be used in the US, and so we compared abortion drugs versus surgical abortion 180 00:16:59,399 --> 00:17:03,519 and fower that abortion drugs were more likely to result in an emergency room visit 181 00:17:03,799 --> 00:17:08,240 for any reason. And then well, these could have been visits for any 182 00:17:08,279 --> 00:17:11,559 reason. You know, woman breaks her arm, goes to the emergency room. 183 00:17:12,039 --> 00:17:18,079 So we decided to focus further in and we specifically looked at visits that 184 00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:23,839 were related to the abortion itself, and we identified these by looking at the 185 00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:29,480 code for the reason for the visit, how the visit was coded, and 186 00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:34,880 we picked up all the codes for pregnancy related emergency room visits. It's happening 187 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:41,359 within thirty days of an abortion, that abortion is the pregnancy, and so 188 00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:47,039 we looked at these visits and we found that among these abortion related er visits, 189 00:17:47,839 --> 00:17:52,319 abortion drugs were over fifty percent more likely to result in an emergency room 190 00:17:52,400 --> 00:18:00,400 visit than were surgical abortions. And over the course of the study, for 191 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:06,319 both types of visits or for both types of abortion increased dramatically, but the 192 00:18:06,759 --> 00:18:12,440 increase was even greater for abortion drugs than it was for surgical abortion. And 193 00:18:12,519 --> 00:18:18,680 something else that stuck out to us in this study was the number of women 194 00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:22,799 who would go to the emergency room. We know they had had the abortion, 195 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:25,319 it was there in the data, but then when they went to the 196 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:29,200 er, it was coded as a miscarriage. Well, clearly, it's not 197 00:18:29,279 --> 00:18:33,119 a miscarriage. Clearly it's an induced abortion, but it's getting coded as a 198 00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:40,640 miscarriage. And by twenty fifteen, sixty percent of the abortion related er visits 199 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:47,559 after abortion drugs were getting miscoded as miscarriages. And so in the third study 200 00:18:47,559 --> 00:18:51,599 that was affected by these retractions, we dug into that a little bit more 201 00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:56,440 and we wanted to see if women were receiving different types of care if their 202 00:18:56,799 --> 00:19:02,400 abortion was miscoded, and we found that women who had this miscoding as a 203 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:08,319 miscarriage had more hospitalizations and were more likely to be hospitalized for follow up surgery 204 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:14,839 to complete the abortion than women without the miscoding. So clearly it was having 205 00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,359 an impact. Your doctor needs to know whether you had an abortion. It 206 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:26,400 can impact how you're treated. And so both of those studies related to abortion 207 00:19:26,559 --> 00:19:30,680 drugs, the one looking at overall er visits and then the one looking at 208 00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:38,079 miscoding, ended up getting cited in some of the briefs surrounding Alliance for Hippocratic 209 00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:45,599 Medicine v. FDA, which is ongoing case challenging FDA regulations of abortion drugs. 210 00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:52,279 I mean, that is absolutely fascinating research, and I can't I mean, 211 00:19:52,319 --> 00:19:56,799 I can believe, but on the one hand, it seems so absurd 212 00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:03,839 that the pro abortion left thinks that it can kind of keep up this facade 213 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:10,160 when so many women organically are having these bad experiences. It seems like it's 214 00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:14,000 sort of from just a public relations standpoint, you know, let alone the 215 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:18,279 staggering human costs, it seems like it's a ticking time bomb for them. 216 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:23,240 Can you just tell us about how these drugs have proliferated across the country, 217 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:27,480 you pinpoint a twenty fifteen, how fast does this happen and how widespread is 218 00:20:27,519 --> 00:20:33,880 it? Well, And that's the scariest part to me, because none of 219 00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:41,599 the challenges to these studies have invalidated the findings. And women need to know 220 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:47,920 that they may end up in the emergency room after taking these drugs. That's 221 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:52,720 important information that women need to know, that women deserve to know. And 222 00:20:52,799 --> 00:20:59,640 now because these studies have been retracted and made difficult to find, that information 223 00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:03,400 is more were inaccessible to them than ever. So it's just it's scary to 224 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:10,400 think about the impact on women's health, and especially because abortion drugs have become 225 00:21:10,599 --> 00:21:17,319 so widespread in the United States, and so this the the main drug that's 226 00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:22,519 used in this method of abortion. Mifropristone was first approved in the US in 227 00:21:22,759 --> 00:21:27,559 two thousand and When it was approved, FDA knew that it was a dangerous 228 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:33,839 drug and so put restrictions on it, on who could provide it, where 229 00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:38,359 it could be dispensed, put a black box warning on it, which is 230 00:21:40,039 --> 00:21:47,279 reserved for the drugs for drugs with the the highest risks, the highest that 231 00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:52,920 we got most care needs to be taken with. And since then it's become 232 00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:59,319 more and more widely used, and also the FDA has slowly walked back a 233 00:21:59,319 --> 00:22:04,160 lot of the key regulations, the key protections on this drug that were put 234 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:11,039 in place to keep women safe. And the most recent changes that have been 235 00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:17,680 made is to allow abortion drugs to go through the mail and to allow them 236 00:22:17,759 --> 00:22:23,720 to be ordered online and it made available in pharmacies. And so as a 237 00:22:23,759 --> 00:22:30,720 result of that, we've just seen the number of drug induced abortions skyrocketing in 238 00:22:30,759 --> 00:22:34,240 the United States. Like I mentioned, our study goes up until twenty fifteen 239 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:40,599 because that's the most recent data that we had, But there's nothing to suggest 240 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:44,039 that these trends were slowing down, and in fact, you know, we've 241 00:22:44,039 --> 00:22:48,759 only seen abortions continue to increase. Drug induced abortions continue to rise since then, 242 00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:53,720 So just scary to think about how women have been affected. Is their 243 00:22:53,839 --> 00:22:56,920 tension. I've seen some good stuff on us, but is there tension in 244 00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:04,079 your view between so many people, especially in the kind of feminist left area, 245 00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:11,640 their take on big pharma and myfi pristone, their METHI Priston's relationship with 246 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:17,240 the FDA, you know, the manufacturer, not the drug itself, obviously, 247 00:23:17,279 --> 00:23:21,359 but the manufacturer's relationship with the FDA, how the drug was approved, 248 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:23,880 et cetera, et cetera. It seems to me that's in some ways a 249 00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:27,000 case study of what a lot of people on the kind of feminist left, 250 00:23:27,039 --> 00:23:32,119 the progressive left, claim to care so deeply about and be so opposed to. 251 00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:38,960 I think, yes, absolutely, the fact that that mesh for Pristone, 252 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:45,960 that abortion drugs are that there really isn't a lot of good research out 253 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:51,680 there on their impact on women's health. And if you go back to the 254 00:23:51,799 --> 00:23:57,400 very beginning, FDA rushed these through through an expedited process that's supposed to be 255 00:23:57,519 --> 00:24:04,759 reserved for drugs that are used to create, used to treat serious or life 256 00:24:04,799 --> 00:24:08,920 threatening illness for which there is no other alternative. I mean, clearly, 257 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,920 pregnancy is not a life threatening illness. There isn't there was an alternative surgical 258 00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:22,759 abortion, and yet FDA followed this expedited process and brought these drugs to the 259 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:27,119 US without doing all of the studies that would normally be done. And that's 260 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:32,720 the same sort of pattern we've seen since then, which is why we were 261 00:24:32,759 --> 00:24:37,559 inspired at Losure Institute to do this sort of study, taking this holistic view, 262 00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:42,440 looking at emergency room visits and seeing well, what exactly is going on, 263 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,839 what are the rates, what are the trends, how have things been 264 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:52,039 changing, How does this compare to surgical abortion, Because certainly there have been 265 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:56,720 other studies published, But if you're only looking at a subset of the codes, 266 00:24:56,759 --> 00:25:02,279 if you're not looking at all of the complicated that are resulting, or 267 00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:04,640 if you're not looking at all of the abortions that are occurring, you're going 268 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,680 to miss You're going to have huge gaps in your study. And so that's 269 00:25:08,799 --> 00:25:14,440 why we used the Medicaid data because we knew we could pick up all the 270 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:19,640 abortions that were funded by Medicaid and then all of the healthcare treatment following those. 271 00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:26,000 But yes, definitely, there have just been this trend of largely the 272 00:25:26,079 --> 00:25:34,000 science has been controlled by abortion advocates and with no comprehensive reporting requirement in the 273 00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:41,559 US for abortion and the FDA not even requiring any complications from abortion drugs to 274 00:25:41,599 --> 00:25:47,359 be reported except for death. The abortion industry controls the data, and we 275 00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:53,000 think women deserve to know about complications short of death, and it's really sad 276 00:25:53,119 --> 00:26:00,079 that this research is getting taken out of their hands. You know, is 277 00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:06,960 there other research coming from you know what the media would deem falsely so called 278 00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:12,680 the mainstream research groups or you know, people in different positions in the media 279 00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:21,400 again will herald as whatever word they use to give credibility at any given moment. 280 00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,279 But is there other research coming out? Again? I mean, you're 281 00:26:25,319 --> 00:26:27,640 looking in some of these in some of this research just that you know, 282 00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:33,559 state data. But are other people doing research in this space that tells the 283 00:26:33,599 --> 00:26:38,039 true story at all? Or is it highly manipulated and being funded by the 284 00:26:38,079 --> 00:26:44,279 abortion industry. What does the research look like in this space? Well, 285 00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:51,119 some of the best research in this area actually comes from Scandinavia, where they 286 00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:57,079 have much more comprehensive health data that allows them to do records linkage studies where 287 00:26:57,599 --> 00:27:03,079 they're doing very similar to what we did here, linking each abortion, each 288 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:10,279 pregnancy outcome with the subsequent healthcare treatment that women receive. And through some of 289 00:27:10,319 --> 00:27:14,880 those studies we've seen many of the same trends that we saw in this study, 290 00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:21,079 which is abortion drugs resulting in higher rates of complications and surgical abortion, 291 00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:26,799 those trends showing no sign of slowing down. And so those countries, those 292 00:27:26,799 --> 00:27:33,680 Scandinavian researchers, those are that's a really good source of a good accurate view 293 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,480 of what's going on. But in the US, it's really hard to get 294 00:27:38,839 --> 00:27:45,880 a good look at abortion and abortion safety because the data is so poor, 295 00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:52,680 and when you have states like California not even collecting any data. California is 296 00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:56,519 the highest abortion volume state in the country, and so at a time when 297 00:27:56,599 --> 00:28:00,640 we should be knowing more and more about what's going on with the after dobs, 298 00:28:00,839 --> 00:28:04,799 we actually know less and less, and so it's really hard to do 299 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:11,680 good research. And especially the abortion industry has no that there's no motivation for 300 00:28:11,799 --> 00:28:15,240 them to be honest and open with their data. In fact the opposite. 301 00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,279 How does it benefit them to make the data available and to be honest about 302 00:28:19,319 --> 00:28:26,039 complications and so that's why we have such such poor research here for the most 303 00:28:26,079 --> 00:28:30,440 part in the US. Again, that's fascinating because it reminds me of what 304 00:28:30,519 --> 00:28:36,599 happened in Europe with trans hormones, so with medical transitions for children, they 305 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:41,640 had such a more concentrated data set in places like the UK with Tavistock, 306 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,880 but also in the Scandinavian countries that they have socialized medicine, it's just easier 307 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,359 to kind of track the trends. It's that almost it sounds like it's similar 308 00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,880 here that it was, just it's sort of easier to track what's happening. 309 00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,160 Well. I've talked a lot about this with our lead author, the lead 310 00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:03,200 author of all three store udies, doctor Jim stid Niki, because he's been 311 00:29:03,279 --> 00:29:07,880 doing he's been involved in research for his entire career, his fifty year career 312 00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:15,640 involved in health services research. He's been faculty at several different universities, and 313 00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:22,279 he's made the comment several times at how science has degraded from when he was 314 00:29:22,359 --> 00:29:29,599 young and from what his mentors who were generation before him taught him about how 315 00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:36,119 good science is supposed to be done. And he has reiterated many times that 316 00:29:36,799 --> 00:29:41,960 good science is open science, and good science requires good data, and that's 317 00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,880 the opposite of what we're seeing now. We don't have good data for the 318 00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:51,279 most part, and we're not having an open discussion. We're not having an 319 00:29:51,319 --> 00:29:56,160 open debate. Some things are simply not researched, or if they are, 320 00:29:56,599 --> 00:30:00,559 we see advocacy wanting to keep these findings out of the conversation, like we've 321 00:30:00,599 --> 00:30:06,279 seen recently with the retraction of our three studies. And it's really it's really 322 00:30:06,319 --> 00:30:11,640 sad to see how how things have changed from the from what science could be 323 00:30:11,799 --> 00:30:15,000 and should be to what we're seeing going on right now. You know, 324 00:30:15,039 --> 00:30:18,799 it was interesting with the and this is obviously totally separate topics, so we 325 00:30:18,839 --> 00:30:25,039 don't forget to deep into it, but it was interesting with the medical transition 326 00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:30,200 research. How even still there are there's research in the United States that's being 327 00:30:30,279 --> 00:30:36,880 suppressed and undermined through various ways on that as the conversation and as public opinion 328 00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:38,880 has shifted, and you know, even the New York Times has come out 329 00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,839 with some decent investigations into detransitioning and all of that. So, Tess, 330 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:48,039 I'm curious if because you know, even if there's not good data. This 331 00:30:48,079 --> 00:30:56,200 is another thing that happened with medical transitions. There became this incredible deluge tragic 332 00:30:56,279 --> 00:31:02,319 value of anecdotes, people with personal experiences, and that combined with some of 333 00:31:02,319 --> 00:31:06,799 the research out of Tavistock and places in Scandinavia, for example, where in 334 00:31:06,839 --> 00:31:12,720 Europe the medical community was reacting more rationally because some of this research wasn't overly 335 00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:18,799 politicized and as charged and all of that. Is it possible that we could 336 00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:26,400 see something happen similarly with mefipristone and abortion drugs, as so many people have 337 00:31:26,559 --> 00:31:30,880 these personal experiences with them, and perhaps as some good research comes out of 338 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:37,720 countries in Scandinavia and in Europe and other parts of the world that is credible. 339 00:31:38,319 --> 00:31:41,599 Well, I see that as an excellent point, because none of this 340 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:48,920 is happening in a vacuum, and certainly I see it most clearly researching the 341 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,559 abortion issue, but it's not just me, it's not just us, and 342 00:31:52,759 --> 00:31:57,799 it's much broader than simply abortion. Coming across a whole host of issues, 343 00:31:57,839 --> 00:32:08,920 we've seen this general attitude of suppression of opposing viewpoints, and sometimes it seems 344 00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:15,279 as if it doesn't even matter the merits of the science or the merits of 345 00:32:15,319 --> 00:32:21,640 the research if they're not if it's not fitting in with the general narrative that 346 00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:29,400 the establishment would like to be telling. And I certainly already we've seen women 347 00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:36,480 coming forward telling their stories, being open and honest about how they have been 348 00:32:36,519 --> 00:32:43,440 harmed by abortion drugs. We've done research recently looking at women's experiences with abortion 349 00:32:43,599 --> 00:32:47,279 pill reversal, so women who started that process and then immediately changed their minds, 350 00:32:47,319 --> 00:32:52,640 immediately regretted it and decided to reverse it. And so there's already been 351 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:59,240 that those women who are being brave and coming forward and wanting to share their 352 00:32:59,279 --> 00:33:09,000 experiences is but it doesn't it doesn't outweigh the need for large scale studies like 353 00:33:09,359 --> 00:33:17,240 the one that was just retracted to come alongside and reinforce what these women's individual 354 00:33:17,319 --> 00:33:23,680 experiences. And we need better data, and we need to be able to 355 00:33:23,759 --> 00:33:32,319 share and debate these issues openly and have honest and open conversations about the research, 356 00:33:32,799 --> 00:33:37,160 and that I think is one of the biggest challenges. People don't even 357 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:43,599 want to have the conversation other researchers. Academia doesn't want to have the conversation 358 00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:50,440 we open where we invite challenges We want to have a debate with anyone who 359 00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,599 would like to discuss the findings with us, who wants to offer their own 360 00:33:53,640 --> 00:34:02,440 interpretation. But that's not what that's not what too many other researchers are interested 361 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:07,319 in. Instead of having a conversation, they would rather just shut it down 362 00:34:07,519 --> 00:34:12,360 and pretend that the research doesn't exist. And I think that's been one of 363 00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:17,000 the biggest challenges for us and all at the expense of women and unborn children. 364 00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:22,480 Tessa long Bunds of the Charlotte Leasure Institute, where you guys just do 365 00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:25,679 fantastic work. Thank you so much for joining the show. Thanks so much 366 00:34:25,679 --> 00:34:30,599 for having me on. Absolutely recommend everybody check out the work that Charlotte LaSure 367 00:34:30,679 --> 00:34:35,000 is doing and Tessa and all of her colleagues. I'm Emily Drashinsky called t 368 00:34:35,079 --> 00:34:37,920 editor here at The Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, 369 00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:50,519 be lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend, heard the fame by 370 00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:59,480 the reason. Then it away.