For a free yaz or yasmin stroke legal consultation, please click free yaz stroke consultation, or call our yaz lawyer if in Maryland at (301) 589-2200. For a DC free Yaz or Yasmin legal consultation call our yaz lawyer in DC at (202) 833-2200. For a free Northern Virginia Yaz or Yasmin legal consultation call our yaz lawyer for Virginia at (888) 926-8583.
Hello. I'm Andrew Bederman, a lawyer from the law firm of Greenberg and Bederman, which practices in the Washington, DC Metro area.
It's no secret that every birth control pill has a small element of risk. One of the acting ingredients in almost every birth control pill on the market is a hormone called progestin, which works in combination with estrogen to both prevent the egg from dropping and to prevent sperm from moving into the uterus.
The use of progestin in birth control pills has been shown in some rare cases to increase the risk of blood clots among some women who use them. The numbers of these cases have been small enough over the years to make the use of progestin an acceptable risk. But the Bayer Corporation has not only put an oral contraceptive on the market that dramatically increases the odds of blood clots, but has also engaged in advertising that downplayed the serious side effects and risks involved.
The pills in question are sold under the names Yaz, Yasmin, and a generic version called Oscella. These birth control pills were marketed as pills that can not only prevent pregnancy, but can also prevent acne and symptoms of PMS. The FDA cited Bayer this year for running misleading television commercials and last month for not following proper quality-control procedures at a plant that makes hormone ingredients. But the significant problem with Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella is that the key ingredient is a synthetic variation of progestin called drospirenone, which has been shown to increase the level of potassium in the blood and therefore increases the risks of blood clots.
Yaz and Yasmin have received a litany of complaints about the serious and dangerous side effects from users and sanctions and penalties from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Between 2004 and 2008, the FDA has received fifty separate reports of deaths, injuries, which include stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism, DVT, among women who were using either Yaz or Yasmin. The FDA has forced Bayer to change its advertising for these birth control pills because they failed to adequately mention the higher risks of blood clots and other very real medical dangers as side effects from taking these birth control pills. These reports of deaths and injuries have caused the FDA to start a study comparing the side effects and risks of blood clots and strokes between Bayer's line of contraceptives and other birth control pills that are on the market, mainly because they believe Bayer's initial study of yaz, yasmin, and oscella to be faulty.
It isn't only in America where these birth control pills are having a dangerous side effects on the lives of the women who use yaz. The medical regulatory board in Switzerland is currently investigating Yaz and Yasmin due to the death of a young woman who died of a pulmonary embolism. She had been taking Yaz for ten months.
Since yaz, yasmin, and oscella birth control pills have been put on the market, more and more women who use these pills have come forward to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with stories of severe injuries and deaths from the side effects due to strokes, pulmonary embolisms and heart attacks. The frequency of these reports has increased to the point where they can't be ignored or written off as “rare birth control side effects."and we believe the fact that Bayer advertised these birth control products so heavily without properly warning potential users of these very real dangerous birth control pill side effects was reckless and irresponsible.
The birth control pill, Yasmin, and it's smaller cousin YAZ, may contribute to a higher risk of cardiovascular problems including blood clots, stroke, and death.
Recent studies published in the British Medical Journal reveal that women who use Yaz™ or Yasmin™ birth control pills are more than twice as likely to suffer serious health complications than women using other birth control pills. Yaz™ and Yasmin™ have been linked with the following serious health complications:
If you have taken Yaz™ or Yasmin™ and have suffered a serious health injury, you may be entitled to compensation from the pharmaceutical drug company Bayer.
For a free legal yaz birth control consultation in Maryland, please call or MD yaz lawyer at (301) 589-2200, if in Washington D.C. Please call our DC yaz lawyer at (202) 833-2200, or if in Virginia please call our VA yaz lawyer at (888) 926-8583, or fill out our free yaz birth control consultation form.
According to the New York Times Bayer led its own study on the safety of Yasmin™ and stood behind its company findings that the drug is safe, yet the FDA has cited Bayer for improper control procedures thus providing a study which shows the risks associated with taking the drug as being lowered. If this study leads to yaz lawsuits, we want to hear from you for a free legal yaz consultation.
One of the biggest selling products of the pharmaceutical company Bayer are a line of birth control pills that go by the names of Yaz and Yasmin, and the generic form called Oscella. Key elements of the Bayer marketing strategy of these birth control pills are what could be described as peripheral benefits. Aside from the obvious purpose of the birth control pill (avoiding pregnancy,) Bayer is also claiming that their birth control pills help prevent acne, and even helps users deal with some of the more emotionally charged aspects of the menstrual cycle such as PMS or PMDD:
" Can the pill be good for you? Can you feel OK when you're on it? Is it doing anything positive for you besides preventing an unwanted pregnancy? The answer to all these questions is yes! Discover it for yourself."
If Yaz and Yasmin worked perfectly and had no potentially dangerous side effects, then we would have no problems whatsoever with Bayer touting these other benefits of yaz or yasmin. But the fact is that there have been some quite serious allegations of very real danger to the users of these birth control pills, and ignoring these dangers while touting other benefits of yaz and yasmin to increase the customer base strikes us as the height of irresponsibility.
It also strikes us as very sadly familiar. There is a long history of corporate irresponsibility when it comes to women and birth control, and the Yaz line of pills are simply the latest example.
In the early 1970's, a company named A.H. Robbins began an aggressive marketing campaign for a new birth control product called the Dalkon Shield. The Shield was an intra-uterine device (IUD) that was presented as the safest and most effective way for women to avoid getting pregnant. There wasn't’t a birth control pill that you had to take every day. There wasn't anything that you had to remember to do. In fact, the strongest marketing aspect for this birth control device was that a woman could simply have it inserted and then could practically forget it was there.
That's what A.H. Robbins said, anyway. What was not mentioned in the marketing campaign was that this device was, like many pharmaceutical products before and since, tested in a rushed and slipshod manner and put on the market before they realized that something was going very, very wrong. The only real test that was performed on the Shield was one that determined whether or not it prevented pregnancy. Any other dangerous side effects were not considered or tested for.
The Dalkon Shield caused severe pelvic infections in over 200,000 American women, with the worst cases resulting in infertility and even death. What made the discovery of the defective product even more shameful was that A.H. Robbins fought tooth and nail for each and every case that was filed against them for damages, to the point that it was close to twenty years before any victims or their families received any compensation.
The Dalkon Shield is considered a watershed case because it caused both government agencies (FDA) and manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices to seriously overhaul the way that they tested and marketed their products. As a result of this infamous IUD, products involving the reproductive functions of women have improved dramatically with regards to safety.
But as much as birth control products and devices have improved, there are still very real dangers involved in some of the products out there. In 2002, Johnson and Johnson released the Ortho Evra Birth Birth Control Patch, which is a transdermal device that is meant to be worn for a week at a time. While both the patch and standard birth control pills work the same way (using the hormones progestin and estrogen to prevent eggs from being released from the ovaries for fertilization,) the main difference is that the hormones in birth control pills are filtered and diluted through the digestive system, while the hormones in the patch are administered through the skin directly to the bloodstream. As a result, your average patch user is carrying 60% more estrogen in her bloodstream than the average user of a birth control pill.
The problem here is that heightened levels of estrogen in the blood stream can lead to thromboembolism (or DVT), which is the formation of blood clots in the legs, aka DVT. Blood clots can and will travel throughout the bloodstream, where they can end up in the lungs or the heart.
The first high profile victim of a pulmonary embolism (DVT) was a perfectly healthy 18 year old girl named Zakiya Kennedy, who collapsed on a subway platform in Manhattan and died on the way to the hospital in April of 2004. Johnson and Johnson's response was to deny everything, despite the fact that a CBS News story revealed that:
"...the company's own records reveal that it received some 500 reports of serious problems associated with the patch between April 2002 and December 2004."
What followed was the inevitable incredibly lengthy bureaucratic ping pong match between Johnson and Johnson and the FDA, in which the FDA made the suggestion that perhaps Johnson and Johnson should include the dangers of blood clotting on the label, and Johnson and Johnson was given a lengthy opportunity to explain why they didn’t think it was necessary, and the FDA took a very long time to consider Johnson and Johnson’s explanations, all while more than a few of the users of this patch were not only suffering from serious adverse side effects, but were also quietly receiving cash settlements, as reported in The New York Post in April of 2006:
"Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical of Raritan, N.J., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has settled a dozen lawsuits for millions of dollars in the last few months, and more than 100 other suits are pending."
Finally, in January of 2008, the FDA ordered Johnson and Johnson to mention prominently the potential dangers of using this birth control product. But all this really did was provide Johnson and Johnson with the opportunity to say to anyone who got hurt "Look, we told you this might happen. The warning is right there on the box." The Ortho Evra birth control patch is still available for sale to this day.
You would think that with such a high profile birth control product failure to use as an example, other pharmaceutical companies would stay well away from any sort of birth control that utilizes elevated levels of hormones and their accompanying dangers of blood clots, but Bayer apparently had no compunction whatsoever.
The culprit here is a variation on progestin called drospirenone, which is not used by any other birth control pill on the market. And again, we seem to be having the same problems with clotting that we had with the birth control patch, along with a host of others, including kidney failure, strokes, heart attacks, and, unfortunately, deaths:
"Over 50 reports of Yasmin or Yaz deaths were received by the FDA between the first quarter of 2004 and the third quarter of 2008, according to some of the complaints filed in the United States. These untimely deaths due to Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella involved women as young as 17 and included heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms (DVT) and strokes, with elevated levels of potassium in the blood frequently reported."
We would like to make the suggestion that perhaps simply making a bigger and bolder label on the box is not the solution here. While it is true that the percentage of Yaz users who suffer severe injuries is comparatively small, we have to wonder what sort of twisted arithmetic is going on over at Bayer when they can consider even a few of their customers dying or suffering from strokes as an acceptable outcome. Under no circumstances should any product or birth control be on the market where regular use has the potential to kill you, no matter how remote the outcome.
Let's say that a company releases a product and goes on an all out marketing blitz to promote it. The company spends millions on flashy advertising featuring celebrities. They take out ads in magazines and newspapers. They consult with marketers and designers to turn the product into an "identity brand," or a "lifestyle choice." And all of this works. The product sells like nobody's business.
If this product, be it a car, an energy drink or a floor cleaner, or in the case of Bayer, a Yaz, Yasmin birth control pill had a defect in it that caused say, 6% of the users to suffer severe and painful injuries, wouldn't you expect a massive government recall of that product? After all, cars, children's toys and tennis shoes have been recalled for a much smaller casualty rate than 6%.
But it seems that drug companies have an exemption to facing the consequences of putting out dangerous products that could be harmful. Considering what it takes for a drug to actually be pulled from the shelves, it would seem that Merck, Pfizer, Bayer and all the other multi-billion dollar drug conglomerates are free to advertise as much and as recklessly as they please, regardless of the consequences or dangers to consumers.
Last month, the British Medical Journal released a study about incidences of blood clots (DVT) in women who use different types of birth control pills, particularly those that use an ingredient called drospirenone, the main ingredient in yaz and yasmin. This ingredient is a synthetic variation of progestin, which along with estrogen is one of the two main working parts of the birth control process.
The results of this study showed that users of drospirenone have a higher risk of venous thrombosis (or blood clots aka DVT) than other forms of birth control pills. In fact, the report says that drospirenone has "a six fold to sevenfold increased risk compared with non-users."
Bear in mind that when the folks who did this study are saying "drospirenone," they might as well be saying "Yaz," "Yasmin," or "Oscella," as these are the only birth control pills on the market that actually use drospirenone as an ingredient. But if you took a look at the initial advertising blitz that took place when Bayer marketed these birth control pills, you wouldn't know that there was anything wrong with yaz, yasmin or oscella at all.
The Yaz commercials occurred in a nightclub settings and college settings, with a series of young attractive women apparently enjoying themselves tremendously. The general theme of the yaz ads was that Bayer was not only selling birth control, they were selling freedom. Do you want freedom from irritability, bloating, nausea, cramps, and all the various emotional and physical discomfort that comes with PMS and PMDD, take yaz. Bayer was even offering freedom from acne by touting Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella as a relief. The narratives in the Bayer Yaz ads even called the yaz or yasmin pills "Low Dose," which gives you the impression that it is somehow a less dangerous birth control pill. To Bayer's credit, they did mention the standard dangers of blood clots from taking yaz or yasmin in women over 30, women who were overweight and women who smoke. But these are the same warnings that apply to any birth control pill. And as the study tells us, Yaz is most certainly not any oral contraceptive.
There are certainly reports coming in of Yaz users who fit into the standard category of women who are most likely to be injured because of birth control. There are women who smoke, or women over thirty, or women who were overweight who suffered from the extremely painful and even fatal injuries caused by blood clotting. But there are also a comparatively huge amount of perfectly healthy women in their twenties who are being hospitalized with blood clots, or suffering from strokes, or heart attacks, or even dying. And it can be argued that Bayer's advertising blitz of Yaz or Yasmin helped increase the number of women who got hurt by making them believe that the birth control pill yaz was a cure all when in fact is was simply a dangerous drug.
It should also be mentioned that there are hundreds of doctors in this country who failed to take the full measure of the drug that they were prescribing. Why were all these prescriptions handed out to women who smoked, or were overweight, or were over thirty? We can only assume that the doctors were looking at information that Bayer provided them via their pharmaceutical salesmen, which must have been as incomplete as the warnings in the yaz birth control commercials.
Greenberg and Bederman is currently accepting clients who have suffered serious adverse affects from the use of either Yaz or Yasmin birth control pills. If you or a loved one have suffered as a result of yaz or yasmin dangerous side effects, contact our yaz lawyer at Greenberg and Bederman for a free yaz legal consultation today.
To learn more about Yaz or Yasmin lawsuits, please read about Yaz Yasmin Recall, or Yaz Yasmin Birth Control History on our Greenberg & Bederman blog. Click on the Products Liability type of law and our Yaz Yasmin articles will be there. Or, if you want to see a Yaz Yasmin recall video, please visit us on Youtube. To find the video type in Yaz at the searchbar.
Since Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella have been on the market, hundreds of women who use these birth control pills have been hospitalized with a medical condition called deep vein thrombosis or DVT. While that might not sound like a particularly harmful event, DVT can actually be extremely painful, and even fatal in some cases.
As the name of the condition implies, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs in the major veins in the legs rather than the superficial, minor veins closer to the surface of the skin. What happens is that a blood clot or blood clots develop in the major veins. Believe it or not, the blood clots themselves are not necessarily harmful. Your blood clots quite naturally whenever you cut yourself. But the situation becomes dangerous when the clotting mechanism gets overzealous; especially when pieces of the clots start to break off, because then they are pulled into the pulmonary circulation system.
Blood is meant to flow unimpeded. In fact, this what keeps us alive. Blood is the delivery system for oxygen to every organ in our bodies, from the heart to the lungs to the brain, and if an obstacle is placed in the path of the regular flow of blood, the results can be painful, long lasting or fatal. This is what causes strokes. This is what causes heart attacks. And this is what causes pulmonary embolisms or DVT.
There are multiple causes of DVT. It can be caused by obesity, smoking, or even prolonged immobility. There have been cases where people who spent too much time on planes or trains have developed clots in their legs. It is also not uncommon for people who have suffered leg injuries to develop this condition. Leg fractures or even deep bruises can cause the natural clotting mechanism to overreact.
Another contributing factor to deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is birth control pills. The use of progestin in these pills has been known to cause clotting in a few cases ever since birth control pills became available but the number of cases has been minuscule enough for progestin to be considered an acceptable risk.
But this was before Bayer started substituting drospirenone for progestin. The instances of blood clots among women who use these Bayer brands of pills is much higher than those women who take other birth control pills, and according to studies published in the British Medical Journal, the cause of this spike in incidents of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) can be laid at the feet of drospirenone.
This synthetic variation of progestin has been shown to raise the potassium levels in the blood, which makes blood clots much more likely. Rather than warn doctors and potential customers of this fact, Bayer instead focused on other aspects of their birth control pill, such as preventing acne and minimizing effects of PMS and PMDD.
There are various symptoms of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) that you should be familiar with, especially if you happen to be taking birth control pills, and most especially if you happen to be taking Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella. If you experience any of these symptoms, you should seek medical treatment immediately.
Sharp Pain: The pain can occur in the legs, but can be especially sharp in your side or chest if a clot starts to travel.
Swelling: Swelling in your legs is a common sign of DVT.
Warmth: Victims of DVT have experienced a warming sensation in their legs.
Discolored Skin or Bruises: Redness or bruising are also symptoms of heavy clotting.
With deep vein thrombosis (DVT), it is much better to be safe than sorry. It is the sort of condition where it far better to be to early than too late.
Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. law firm that is offering legal assistance for women who have suffered medical complications from the use of Bayer's line of birth control pills. That includes Yaz, Yasmin, and Oscella. We are helping women receive compensation for their medical bills, as well as pain and suffering. If you or a loved one has been injured or hospitalized due to the use of these birth control pills, contact our yaz lawyer at Greenberg and Bederman for a free yaz legal consultation today
Over the past few months we have been staying on top of the news about Bayer’s line of birth control pills. As many of you probably know, there have been serious medical problems that have been surfacing among women who have used Yaz, Yasmin, and Oscella, which is the generic version of Yasmin.
Women all over the country have been suffering from strokes, pulmonary embolisms and heart attacks, which are being caused by blood clots that generally form in the legs of users of these pills. The cause of these clots is due to elevated levels of potassium in the bloodstream, which falls firmly at the feet of one of the two main ingredients of Bayer’s line of birth control pills. Rather than use the standard ingredient of progestin, Bayer decided to go with Drispirenone, which is a synthetic variation of progestin that was shown to be effective in fighting acne and the mood swings that sometimes come with PMS.
We believe that Bayer was well aware of the increased dangers of drispirenone, but chose to downplay them in advertisements, labeling and the information that was given to doctors.
We also believe that Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella are causing gall bladder disease in the women who use them. In addition to raised potassium levels in the blood stream of users of these pills, it has also been show to increase the level of cholesterol in bile, which the gallbladder is primarily concerned with storing. Once the cholesterol level goes up, the gallbladder’s storage abilities are slowed down, which can and often does lead to gallstones.
Gallstones might not seem to be a serious medical problem, but anyone who has suffered the severe pain that accompanies them could certainly tell you otherwise. There is also the very real danger that a gallstone might get caught in a bile duct, which can cause the bile to stop being produced. The only remedy for this is painful and expensive surgery in which the gallbladder is removed.
While we can agree that gallbladder disease is not as dangerous or life altering as a stroke, heart attack, or pulmonary embolism, it is still a painful and expensive medical condition. And if this disease is brought on solely due to the use of a pharmaceutical product that was marketed without mention of these risks, then we believe that the manufacturer of that product should be held accountable in a court of law. We also believe that victims of this sort should be compensated for their medical bills, time taken off of work and physical and emotional pain.
Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. area law firm that has offered legal assistance to injury victims of all types for twenty five years. We have helped victims of car accidents, medical malpractice and premises liability, and we have also helped those who have been injured due to faulty and dangerous pharmaceuticals. We can say with absolutely no hesitation that Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella qualify as faulty and dangerous.
Women have been taking a birth control pill in good faith and have been injured or worse as a result, and we find that unacceptable. If you or a loved one has been injured or hospitalized due to the use of Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.
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