Overturning of Roe v. Wade Is Also Adversely Affecting The Healthcare Of Women Who Are Not Pregnant.

HealthcareFor

AllVille

Methotrexate is a very old chemotherapy drug that, when administered in low doses, also broadly suppresses immune function.

Thus, it is clinically useful in treating autoimmune-associated disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Crohn's disease and psoriasis.

Thus, the drug is prescribed to a lot of folks.

However, because methotrexate is also used as an abortifacient, most often to safely treat hazardous ectopic pregnancies, it turns out that, suddenly, certain US'ian folks, particularly folks with a uterus even if they are not pregnant, suddenly can't get the drug to treat their illnesses.

Sonja Sharp has that story in the Los Angeles Times:

Six days after the Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion, lupus patient Becky Schwarz got an unexpected message from her rheumatologist.

“This is a notice to let you know that we are pausing all prescriptions and subsequent refills of methotrexate,” the message read. “This decision has been made in response to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.”...

{snip}

...In Texas, dispensing methotrexate to someone who uses it to induce a miscarriage after 49 days of gestation is a felony; that makes pharmacists hesitant to fill such prescriptions for almost anyone with a uterus. A new total ban on abortion in Tennessee will effectively criminalize any medication that could disrupt pregnancy past the point of fertilization, with strict exceptions for a patient who will otherwise die. And in Virginia, confusion over rules about who is permitted to prescribe drugs “qualified as abortifacients” may be blocking access to the medication.

“That’s what was shocking to me,” said Schwarz, a 27-year-old who lives in Tysons Corner, Va. “In a state where I thought I was relatively protected regardless of what the Supreme Court decided, I found out I wasn’t.”...

{snip}

...Since its reversal, many patients have been delayed or denied this “gold-standard” treatment for conditions that have nothing to do with pregnancy.

“I have gotten some reports where children have been denied methotrexate for their juvenile arthritis until they’ve proven they’re not pregnant,” said Dr. Cuoghi Edens, an assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at University of Chicago Medicine and a rheumatology expert who treats adults and children.

In one case, a pharmacist initially refused to dispense methotrexate to an 8-year-old girl in Texas. In a note the child’s doctor shared with Edens, the pharmacist wrote, “Females of possible child bearing potential have to have diagnosis on hard copy with state abortion laws.”...

{snip}

...“The majority of rheumatic diseases affect females at substantially higher rates than males,” Edens explained. “The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in women to men is 3 to 1. For lupus it’s 10 to 1. And so rheumatology is a very female-predominate patient population.”

Such patients take a far lower dose of methotrexate than is used to treat ectopic pregnancy or breast cancer. Most are counseled to use contraceptives, and to switch to alternative treatments if they seek to get pregnant.

Nevertheless, some doctors have already stopped prescribing methotrexate rather than risk falling afoul of antiabortion laws...

Meanwhile, in Ohio, that terrible tragic story about a child who had to go to another state to get proper health care, despite certain corporate media organs best efforts to deny it, is demonstrably true...



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