Due to what some doctors call "ridiculous controls," many of the nation's gynecologists have given up the use of legal RU486 abortion medication to buy black market RU486.
Manufacturers discovered the problem through their distributor networks and the Department of Health is starting to monitor the situation closely.
Meishih Pharmaceutical, which was the first to import legal Apano RU486, says that according to their sales people, more than 20 gynecologists in southern and central Taiwan now use illegal RU486. Statistics for northern Taiwan are still being compiled.
A doctor identified only as Dr. Chen by Chinese media said that the dosage of the RU486 abortion medicine used by teenagers is lower than Department of Health approved standards and that during the period between today and this year's summer holiday, he has used more than three times more black market RU486 than legal RU486.
One doctor said that the problem isn't that he wants to use illegal RU486, the problem is government controls, which he says are so strict that they border on the ridiculous.
RU486 is the first non-addictive drug in Taiwan subject to controls, which means that all movement of the drug has to be registered. As an example, he says that he once dropped a pill on the floor and was unable to find it. Since he wouldn't be able to record the pill in the Department of Health registration ledger, he asked the medical company for an extra pill. He was told that was impossible since every pill has to be accounted for.
A third gynecologist said that even though he uses legal RU486, he also uses three times as much illegal RU486, mostly for underaged girls. His practice is next to a private high school, and he says that "if I refuse to assist them, they would get their medicine elsewhere and take it without monitoring," causing him to inflict harm rather than to heal.
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