Health
New Research Finds Potential Alternative to Abortion Pill Mifepristone
A new study suggests a possible alternative to the abortion pill mifepristone, a drug that continues to be a target of lawsuits and legislation from abortion opponents.
But the potential substitute could further complicate the politics of reproductive health because it is also the key ingredient in a contraceptive morning-after pill.
The new study, published Thursday in the journal NEJM Evidence, involved a drug called ulipristal acetate, the active ingredient in the prescription contraceptive Ella, one of two types of morning-after pills approved in the United States. (The other, Plan B One-Step, which does not require a prescription, contains a different drug and does not work in a way that would terminate a pregnancy, according to scientific evidence.)
In the study, 133 women who were up to nine weeks’ pregnant took twice the dose of the ulipristal acetate contained in Ella, followed by misoprostol, the second drug used in the typical medication abortion regimen. All but four of the women completed the termination of their pregnancies without further intervention, a 97 percent completion rate that is similar to the regimen using mifepristone. (The others finished the process with additional medication or a procedure.)
There were no serious complications, and the study concluded that using ulipristal acetate for abortion was safe.
Dr. Beverly Winikoff, the lead author of the study and the president of Gynuity Health Projects, a reproductive health research organization, said that after the Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022, she began wondering about a possible role for ulipristal acetate, which has a similar chemical structure to mifepristone.
“I was thinking, there’s maybe something else we can do,” she said. “Another option. And this one is already on the market.”
The political implications of the study are complex because of their potential to blur the line between the public perception of emergency contraception and abortion. For years, abortion opponents have opposed morning-after pills by saying they can cause abortions, and reproductive health experts have countered by pointing to scientific evidence that the pills do not terminate pregnancies but instead act to prevent pregnancy after sex.
Some reproductive health experts are concerned that research showing that a morning-after pill ingredient can be used for abortion could stoke attempts to crack down on emergency contraception and sow confusion that could bolster the larger anti-abortion strategy.
Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for Students for Life of America, said her organization would “absolutely” consider litigation over Ella.
“The pro-life movement should be vindicated,” Ms. Hamrick said. “We’ve been arguing for years that Ella acts as an abortifacient.”
Mary Ziegler, a law professor and abortion expert at the University of California, Davis, said the study could present challenges for both sides of the abortion debate.
“It’s going to put wind in the sails of abortion opponents who have been saying things like contraceptives can be abortifacients,” she said, adding, “This study being released will be difficult, I think, for abortion rights supporters to manage.”
But Ms. Ziegler said the study’s findings could also be “politically risky” for abortion opponents because public support for contraception is high and many voters in conservative states endorsed ballot measures protecting abortion rights. “I think it’s one of those things that’s going to tempt social conservatives to push probably faster than politics would currently permit in the direction of regulating contraception,” she said. “And I think that could backfire.”
Reproductive health experts said the new study did not refute the science showing that morning-after pills don’t induce abortions, because it involved a different dose of the drug.
Abortion opponents said they were not surprised by the study’s findings.
“After years of denying ulipristal acetate’s potential to end the life of an embryo, abortion advocates are now starting to use it as a substitute for the abortion drug mifepristone,” Dr. Donna Harrison, director of research for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement. “The reason for this is simple. Ulipristal and mifepristone function in the same way.”
Ella was already a target for some conservatives. Project 2025, a right-wing policy blueprint that has been strongly tied to the new Trump administration, said that Ella should be removed from required insurance coverage of contraception under the Affordable Care Act because it is “a potential abortifacient.”
Mifepristone, the first pill in the standard two-drug medication abortion regimen, is the only drug specifically approved for abortion in the United States. Typically used through 12 weeks’ gestation, mifepristone stops the development of a pregnancy by blocking the hormone progesterone. The second drug, misoprostol, is taken 24 to 48 hours later and causes contractions similar to a miscarriage.
Ulipristal acetate is in the same class of medications as mifepristone and also blocks the activity of progesterone, a hormone that prepares the uterus to receive and hold an embryo, said Dr. Daniel Grossman, a reproductive health physician and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the new study.
In the study, a 60 milligram dose of ulipristal acetate (double the 30 milligrams in Ella) was substituted for mifepristone and followed by misoprostol, which has various medical uses and has not been targeted as much by abortion opponents. (Misoprostol can also facilitate an abortion on its own, but is considered more effective in a combination regimen.)
Reproductive health experts said they welcomed the search for alternatives to mifepristone because abortion opponents have been waging efforts to sharply restrict the medication across the country, most notably with a federal lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration. The Supreme Court rejected that lawsuit last year, ruling that the initial plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, but the suit has since been revived with three states as plaintiffs.
Dr. Grossman, who wrote an editorial about the study, said the prospect of a substitute for mifepristone was “certainly a promising finding.” But, he added, “if because of this new evidence that at higher doses, ulipristal acetate could cause an abortion, that were to lead to ulipristal acetate being taken off the market for emergency contraception, that would be really, really bad.”
The company that manufactures Ella, Perrigo, issued a statement saying that Ella “was not tested in this study.” It added, “Ella is an F.D.A.-approved emergency contraception pill that acts before pregnancy can occur,” she continued. “There continues to be no evidence to show that, on its own, Ella causes an abortion.”
The study was conducted in Mexico City and was co-led by researchers there.
Several experts said that because it was a relatively small first study with no comparison group of patients, more research was needed before ulipristal acetate should be used for abortion. “We can’t change clinical practice based on this study,” said Kelly Cleland, a researcher who is the executive director of the American Society for Emergency Contraception.
Scientists have long understood that hormone-based drugs may be able to play different functions at different doses along the spectrum of a woman’s reproductive health cycle.
In Europe, researchers including Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician and founder of telemedicine organizations that provide abortion pills globally, are studying low doses of mifepristone as a weekly birth control pill. Dr. Gomperts said she considered the new ulipristal acetate study sufficient to prescribe the drug off-label for medication abortion.
“The more uses we have for these medications, the harder it will be for people to take them away,” said Dr. Paul Blumenthal, an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University who was in an advisory group for the study.
Plan B is a much more widely used morning-after pill in the United States, but Ella is considered more effective for some women, including people who are overweight. Plan B is intended to be taken within three days after unprotected sex, while Ella can be taken within five days.
Both pills prevent pregnancy by blocking ovulation, the release of eggs from the ovaries that occurs before eggs can be fertilized, scientific studies have shown.
The claim by some abortion opponents that morning-after pills are abortion drugs is based on a theory that they might also prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. Most scientific research has not found that to be the case.
For years, despite scientific evidence to the contrary detailed in an investigation by The New York Times, the F.D.A.-approved label and packaging for Plan B One-Step said that while the pill worked by blocking ovulation, there was a possibility it might prevent implantation. In 2022, the agency changed the language to make it clear that Plan B acts only before fertilization, “will not work if you’re already pregnant, and will not affect an existing pregnancy.”
The F.D.A. label for Ella says that its “likely primary mechanism of action” is to stop or delay ovulation. The label adds that the medication may also affect implantation. Studies in recent years, however, suggest that Ella does not operate by blocking a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.
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South Carolina is facing a major measles outbreak, resulting in the quarantine of hundreds of residents.
The South Carolina Department of Health (DPH) reported in a media briefing on Wednesday that the current number of measles cases has reached 111 as part of the current Spartanburg County outbreak.
DPH first reported a measles outbreak in the Upstate region on Oct. 2.
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The health department confirmed that 254 people are currently in quarantine and 16 are in isolation to prevent further spread.
The health department confirmed that 254 people are currently in quarantine in the upstate region. (Getty Images)
“This significant jump in cases is unfortunate,” a DPH spokesperson commented on the outbreak.
Public exposure was identified at Inman Intermediate School, with 43 of their students in quarantine.
“This significant jump in cases is unfortunate.”
Eight other intermediate and middle schools in the area are also reportedly undergoing quarantine. The DPH said multiple students have had to quarantine twice due to repeat exposure.
“Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing to people’s education, to employment and other factors in people’s lives and our communities,” the spokesperson said.
“This significant jump in cases is unfortunate,” a DPH spokesperson commented on the current outbreak. (iStock)
Out of the 111 confirmed cases, 105 were unvaccinated. Receiving a vaccination within 72 hours has been shown to prevent measles infection, the DPH spokesperson noted.
Some cases are related to travel exposure, while others are from an unknown source, suggesting that measles is circulating in the community, the DPH noted.
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Connecticut has also reported its first measles case in four years, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
The department confirmed on Thursday that an unvaccinated child in Fairfield County, under the age of 10, was diagnosed with measles after recently traveling internationally.
“Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing,” a DPH spokesperson said. (iStock)
The child began to show symptoms several days later, including a runny nose, cough, congestion, fever and a rash starting at the head and spreading to the rest of the body.
The Connecticut DPH noted that measles is “highly contagious” and can spread quickly through the air via coughing or sneezing. The CDC has estimated that nine out of 10 unvaccinated individuals who encounter an infected person will develop the measles virus.
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According to the International Vaccine Access Center, more than 1,800 cases of measles have been reported in 2025, which is the most since the U.S. declared the virus eliminated in 2000. It is also the most cases recorded in three decades.
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“The single best way to protect your children and yourself from measles is to be vaccinated,” DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, M.D., wrote in a statement. “One dose of measles vaccine is about 93% effective, while two doses are about 97% effective.”
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A sperm donor whose samples helped conceive nearly 200 children across Europe unknowingly carried a cancer-causing genetic mutation — a hidden risk now tied to multiple childhood illnesses and early deaths.
An investigation led by the BBC and many other public service broadcasters revealed that the donations were made to Denmark’s European Sperm Bank (ESB). Those donations were then used by 67 fertility clinics in 14 countries over a 17-year span.
The donor, who was not identified, was paid to donate as a student beginning in 2005, according to the report.
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Although the donor passed the initial health screenings, he had hidden genetic mutations that damaged the TP53 gene, which helps to prevent cancer by repairing DNA damage or trigger the death of cancer cells.
When TP53 is mutated, those protective functions are lost, which can lead to uncontrolled cell division, accumulation of mutations and tumor growth, research has shown.
A sperm donor whose samples helped conceive nearly 200 children across Europe (not pictured) unknowingly carried a cancer-causing genetic mutation — a hidden risk now tied to multiple childhood illnesses and early deaths. (Getty Images)
Up to 20% of the man’s sperm would contain that mutated gene, and any children conceived from that affected sperm would have the mutation in every cell of their body, the BBC report stated.
As a result, these children would have a 90% risk of developing some type of cancer in their lifetime, including breast cancer, bone cancers, brain tumors and leukemia. This heightened risk is known as Li Fraumeni syndrome.
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Doctors raised these concerns at the annual congress of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG), which was held in Milan in May 2025.
At that conference, Edwige Kasper — a specialist in cancer genetics at Rouen University Hospital in France — presented the case of the sperm donor whose genetic material carried the harmful variant.
“This is the abnormal dissemination of genetic disease. Not every man has 75 children across Europe.”
It was reported that 23 children had been confirmed to have the variant at that time, 10 of which had already been diagnosed with cancer.
The actual number is likely much higher, the report surmised, as at least 197 children were born from the donated sperm — but not all data has been collected.
Kasper called for a limit on the number of births or families for a single donor in Europe.
“We can’t do whole-genome sequencing for all sperm donors — I’m not arguing for that,” she said. “But this is the abnormal dissemination of genetic disease. Not every man has 75 children across Europe.”
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She also recommended that children born from this donor’s sperm undergo genetic counseling.
“We have some children that have already developed two different cancers, and some of them have already died at a very early age,” Kasper recently told the investigators.
Up to 20% of the man’s sperm would contain that mutated gene, and any children conceived from that affected sperm would have the mutation in every cell of their body, the BBC report stated. (iStock)
There is no worldwide law that limits how many times a donor’s sperm can be used or how many children may be born from a single donor, according to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).
However, individual countries may have their own rules or guidelines surrounding sperm donor usage. The ESHRE recently proposed a cap of 50 families per donor as an international limit.
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Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, commented on these developments to Fox News Digital.
“This awful story emphasizes the growing need for up-to-date genetic screening for all donors,” he said. “It also provides context for the idea that knowing the donor provides an advantage.”
“This awful story emphasizes the growing need for up-to-date genetic screening for all donors,” Dr. Marc Siegel said. (iStock)
“Genetic screening, including for oncogenes (genes that have the potential to cause cancer) is improving dramatically, and all use of sperm donations must include it,” Siegel went on.
He also called for AI to be used to improve and speed up the process.
“When a propensity for disease is suspected, the sperm must be discarded,” the doctor added.
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In a statement sent to Fox News Digital, the European Sperm Bank expressed “deepest sympathy” for the families involved.
“We are deeply affected by the case and the impact that the rare TP53 mutation has on a number of families, children and the donor. They have our deepest sympathy,” the ESP said.
The American Society of Reproductive Medicine provided its guidance on embryo and gamete donation, which stated in part that all prospective donors should undergo “appropriate genetic evaluation.” (iStock)
“ESB tests and performs an individual medical assessment of all donors in full compliance with recognized and scientific practice and legislation.”
In the case of this particular sperm donor with the TP53 mutation, the ESB noted that it occurs only in a small part of the donor’s sperm cells and not in the rest of the body.
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“In such cases, the donor himself and his family members are not ill, and a mutation of this type is not detected preventively by genetic screening,” the agency said.
When the ESB later confirmed the mutation in 2023, the donor was “immediately blocked” and authorities and clinics were notified.
“Donors should be healthy and have no history to suggest hereditary disease.”
“The clinics are responsible for informing the patients, partly because we as a sperm bank do not necessarily know the patients, and because the patients’ own treating physicians are best equipped to advise them in the specific situation,” the agency stated.
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When contacted by Fox News Digital, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) provided its guidance on embryo and gamete donation, which stated in part that all prospective donors should undergo “appropriate genetic evaluation.”
“Donors should be healthy and have no history to suggest hereditary disease,” the ASRM continued.
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Parents with concerns are encouraged to contact both their treating clinic and the relevant fertility authority in that country.
GLP-1 weight loss pill in development
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel discusses advancements in weight loss drugs, safety concerns surrounding nicotine patches and his interview with FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary on vaccine protocol.
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Scientists in Sweden have created a new pill designed to help the body burn fat and control blood sugar in a different way than popular GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic.
While injectable GLP-1s work by suppressing appetite, this new treatment boosts metabolism in the muscles.
A study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University included both an early animal study and a human clinical trial with 48 healthy adults and 25 people with type 2 diabetes, according to a press release.
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The new oral medication was found to successfully control blood glucose, boost fat burning and retain muscle mass in animals, while getting high marks for tolerability and safety in humans.
It was also found to have fewer side effects than GLP-1s like semaglutides and tirzepatides, which are known to cause appetite loss, gastrointestinal distress and muscle wasting, the researchers noted.
While injectable GLP-1s work by suppressing appetite, this new treatment boosts metabolism in the muscles. (iStock)
The experimental medication uses a new form of beta-2 agonist that benefits muscle function while also avoiding overstimulation of the heart, which has been identified as a potential safety concern of older versions.
The findings were published this week in the journal Cell.
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Because the new oral drug acts via a different mechanism than appetite-suppressing medications, it could be used alone or in combination with GLP-1s, the researchers noted.
“Our results point to a future where we can improve metabolic health without losing muscle mass,” said Tore Bengtsson, professor at the Department of Molecular Bioscience at Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, in the release. “Muscles are important in both type 2 diabetes and obesity, and muscle mass is also directly correlated with life expectancy.”
“Muscles are important in both type 2 diabetes and obesity, and muscle mass is also directly correlated with life expectancy.” (iStock)
This medication has the potential to be of “great importance” for patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity, according to Shane C. Wright, assistant professor at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet.
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“Our substance appears to promote healthy weight loss and, in addition, patients do not have to take injections,” he added.
Dr. Trey Wickham, interim chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism at VCU Health in Richmond, Virginia, was not involved in the study but shared his reaction to the publication in the journal Cell.
“Our results point to a future where we can improve metabolic health without losing muscle mass.”
“This compound’s mechanism of action could address some specific metabolic concerns with previous weight reduction therapies, such as the loss of both muscle and fat tissue,” Wickham told Fox News Digital.
“Although the reported preliminary results are interesting, rigorous testing involving larger longitudinal trials are necessary to ensure human long-term safety and understand the potential role of this compound in the comprehensive, evidence-based treatment of obesity and diabetes.”
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The study had some limitations, the researchers noted, chiefly that the preclinical studies in mice fail to capture the “complex nature of these diseases” in humans.
Structural studies are needed to understand exactly how the drug works.
“This compound’s mechanism of action could address some specific metabolic concerns with previous weight reduction therapies, such as the loss of both muscle and fat tissue,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Our phase 1 data show that compound 15 is well-tolerated; however, conclusive clinical efficacy data (on how the drug controls glucose metabolism) are currently still lacking.”
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Looking ahead, the company that developed the drug, Atrogi AB, plans to conduct a larger phase 2 clinical trial with a larger, more diverse population, including people with obesity.
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The study was supported in part by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Society for Medical Research and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Uppsala University, University of Copenhagen, Monash University and University of Queensland all collaborated with the lead researchers.
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