US Groups Boycott HMR's New Allergy Drug

US organizations opposed to the use of the abortion pill RU-486(mifepristone) are boycotting Hoechst Marion Roussel's new antiallergy drug Allegra (fexofenadine), because of the company's links with Roussel Uclaf, RU-486's developer. However, HMR is now divesting all its interests in this product (see page 22).

"There are few ways to defend American women from the imminent invasion of RU-486," according to Kristi Hamrick, director of communications at the Family Research Council, one of the groups organizing the boycott. "Supporting a boycott of a new, popular drug made by a company with ties to the production of RU-486 is one powerful way to say 'Americans won't tolerate deadly drugs.'"

Ms Hamrick says that RU 486 was placed on a fast-track approval process by the Food and Drug Administration even though there was no public demand for it. "Such a fast approval of the abortion drug only benefits the multi-million dollar abortion industry at the expense of the health and safety of women. A drug which takes women into the dark and lonely corners of their homes to kill their babies, risking their own lives in the process, should not be produced or distributed in any country."Other organizations involved in the boycott include the National Right to Life Committee, the Christian Coalition, the Southern Baptist Convention and Concerned Women for America.