Tom Coburn: “There is nothing in this amendment that will limit the research of any drug in any way, in any concept, whose purpose is…”

“There is nothing in this amendment that will limit the research of any drug in any way, in any concept, whose purpose is something other than that. So if you were to take Cytotech or RU-486 and say you want to try to use it in a different way, this does not limit that at all. When you file an application with the FDA, you give what your intended purpose is. What this amendment says is if you bring to the FDA a drug whose only intended purpose is to induce the separation of a blastocyst from the uterine wall, that is the technical term for what it does, that they should not spend money approving that. If you bring the same drug to the FDA and say this is something that solves a problem with the liver, or this decreases portal hypertension, even though it might have that effect of causing an inducement of abortion, it is still approved.”