RU486: a compound that gets itself talked about.

In part, RU486 is 'the pill' awaited for centuries by women in difficulty and still threatened by the danger of botched abortions in many countries. This is enough for it to be the object of innumerable articles in the professional and lay press, and of so many private and public debates. The recently demonstrated possibility of stopping the development of pregnancy with a convenient combination of RU486 and a cheap, safe, orally active prostaglandin, and thus the potential of defusing in part the abortion issue, has again headed the front pages of the news. The 'political chemistry' of RU486 (Hogden, 1991), which is still in full swing, delays its introduction and its use by women in need, particularly in the developing world, and by patients suffering from a number of diseases potentially treatable by the drug.