The US is trying to block the World Health Organization (WHO) from endorsing two abortion pills which could save the lives of some of the 68,000 women who die from unsafe practices in poor countries every year.
The WHO wants to put the pills on its essential medicines list, which constitutes official advice to all governments on the basic drugs their doctors should have available.
Last month, an expert committee met to consider a number of new drugs for inclusion on the list. For the first time they approved two pills, to be used in combination for the termination of early pregnancy, called Mifepristone and Misoprostol.
In poor countries where abortion is legal, doctors currently have no alternative to surgery.
The Guardian newspaper understands that the US Department of Health and Human Services has been lobbying the director-general's office at the WHO to block approval of the pills, in line with President George W. Bush's neoconservative stance on abortion.
While the availability of pills might make abortion easier and could increase the number choosing it, the experts want them listed to reduce the deaths and damage caused by surgery. Every year, 19 million women have unsafe abortions -- 18.5 million of those take place in developing countries.
An estimated 68,000 women die as a result of botched or unhygienic surgery, while many others suffer long-term damage, including sterility.
The WHO's own Department of Reproductive Health proposed the addition of the abortion pills to the list.
The risk of death from abortion in developing countries is 100 times higher than in countries such as the UK, where Mifepristone has been licensed since 1991.
The pills were licensed in the US in 2000.
The WHO committee recommended unanimously that the pills go on the essential medicines list. But although the director-general's approval is usually a formality and the changes are published within days, more than a month has now passed.
One committee member said that all the evidence on the risks and benefits of the pills had been on the WHO Web site for months.
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