Yaz Yasmin Oral Contraceptives Lawsuits Growing
In 2007, a 39-year old woman from San Francisco was the happy mother of 3-year-old twins.
Doctors put her on the Yaz birth control pill. Four weeks and one day later, she suffered a stroke.
Today it’s obvious to see part of her skull has been removed. Doctors had to operate to accommodate the brain swelling following her stroke. Her IQ is 77. She has chronic pain and has no short-term memory. She can no longer drive.
The injured woman was in the hospital for six months and returned to her twins a different person. They are getting help coping with the condition of their new mother, who walks, talks and looks different, with the help of a counselor.
Her doctors told her it was Yaz that caused her stroke and she has filed suit against drug maker Bayer HealthCare.
In addition, a 34-year-old history teacher and mother of two is also suing. She developed blood clots in both lungs in 2007 after starting Yaz. That resulted in partial loss of her right lung.
Yaz and Yasmin are made by Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals. Yaz is the newest sister to drug Yasmin and Yaz contains less estrogen. Ocella birth control is the generic version that is sold by Teva Pharmaceuticals.
All three oral contraceptives are among the most widely used and involve a combination of ethinyl estradiol with a new type of progestin, drospirenone. It has been linked to health problems including strokes, heart attacks, deep vein thrombosis, gallbladder disease, pulmonary embolisms, and death. The drug label says that the presence of drospirenone can increase potassium levels and may present a risk for heart problems for women who have liver or kidney problems.
Courthouse News Service reports that Bayer is facing more than 125 lawsuits over Yaz, and up to six new cases a day are being filed around the country, claiming that Bayer didn’t thoroughly research the new progesterone ingredient, drospirenone before marketing it.
Class actions are forming in New Jersey, where Bayer is headquartered, in East St. Louis, and in Pennsylvania state court.
Amazingly the drug is still on the market. Bayer may have failed to warn about side effects, but it does know how to market.
Yaz is the top-selling birth control pill in the U.S. partially due to the multimillion- dollar ad campaign by Bayer that promotes the pill as a quality-of-life treatment that improves acne and severe premenstrual depression.
The go-to drugs for women under the age of 35 generated sales of about $1.8 billion for Bayer last year.
Bayer says its studies, which it financed, find cardiovascular risks among women on the Bayer products were comparable to an older formula of birth control pills. But Bayer has a credibility problem. The company had to spend $20 million to retract misleading television commercials that the FDA says overstated the drug’s efficacy and promoted it to relieve premenstrual syndrome, for which it is not approved, and that the company minimized serious risk.
In August, the FDA said that Bayer did not follow proper quality control procedures in its hormone-making plant.
At Farah and Farah, our experienced Florida pharmaceutical litigation attorneys are taking in a number of cases by women who have been hurt by these oral contraceptives which should be taken off the market.
Bayer stands behind its oral contraceptives and plans to defend itself vigorously against the rising number of lawsuits filed by lawyers and the women they represent who feel these dangerous contraceptives should be taken off the market.
Source article: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=7072823
