Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals is a leader in the development and manufacturing of medications worldwide, but not all of its drugs appear to have the consumer’s best interest in mind. Consider the company’s lineup of birth control pills. All “four sisters” have one thing in common – a bad reputation. They put women at risk for serious and life threatening health problems.

Let’s take a closer look at these “four sisters” of Bayer oral contraceptives:

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When Yaz and Yasmin hit the market, they were touted to be different than other birth control pills because they could curb the annoying symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and even clear up unsightly acne. The marketing campaign worked quite well for Bayer HealthCare. The pills became the No. 1 selling oral contraceptives in the United States, with many of its users being young women and teenagers who asked their doctors for the pills by name.

But the honeymoon would soon end for Bayer, as reports of potentially fatal side effects from Yaz and Yasmin began to surface. Bayer was also slapped by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with fines and ordered to spend millions on new ads to clarify its benefits (for example, the pills are approved for the treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD, and not PMS) and clearly state the risk for side effects such as blood clots.

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Bayer HealthCare has launched another birth control pill packed with the hormone ethinyl estradiol, the diuretic drospirenone, and the B vitamin folic acid. The new oral contraceptive, called SAFYRAL, follows by three months the introduction of Beyaz, a near-identical pill packed with the same active ingredients. Folic acid has been shown to protect unborn babies against neural tube defects if the vitamin is taken regularly by women before and during the first three months of pregnancy.

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WARREN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY – Eighteen-year-old college freshman Michelle A. Pfleger was walking to class last fall when she collapsed without warning. Hours later, she was pronounced dead. An autopsy concluded she had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a pulmonary thromboemboli, or a blood clot in her lung.

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Just one month after Susan Gallenos began taking the birth control pill Yaz, she nearly lost her life to a stroke. Half her skull was removed to ease the pressure on her swelling brain. She would never be the same again. Her doctors blamed her birth control pill.

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When Katie Ketner was 15, she met with a gynecologist about birth control. The doctor told Katie that Yaz “helped people regulate their menstruation, helped people control their acne, and things like that,” Katie remembers. The ads for Yaz were everywhere then, colorful commercials with smiling women praising the pill that not only prevented pregnancy, but also squashed irritability and moodiness associated with premenstrual syndrome as well as cleared up bothersome acne. It was an easy sale for Katie.

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The number of lawsuits against Bayer for its top-selling birth control pill, Yaz, has climbed to more than 4,200. The lawsuits allege that Bayer knew its pills put women at risk for blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks, a common side effect with any oral contraceptive. However, nearly half of the lawsuits against Bayer allege that the pills caused damage to the gallbladder and in many instances resulted in gallbladder removal. Bayer dismisses the notion that its pills can cause gallbladder problems and maintains its pills are no more dangerous than other oral contraceptives.

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You would think German drug giant Bayer would have learned its lesson not to overstate the benefits of its drugs in marketing campaigns after shelling out $20 million in advertising last year to correct claims that its blockbuster birth control pill Yaz was a cure-all for the bothersome symptoms of premenstrual syndrome while downplaying the risks associated with the drug.

Apparently, some lessons are never learned. The company has just agreed to pay another $3.3 million to Oregon, California and Illinois over ads for its vitamin One A Day Men’s Health Formula, that claim the supplement contains an ingredient that may reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

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Sarah Haskins of Target Women, a recurring segment on Current TV’s weekly television show, infoMania, is known to some for her take on the often-ridiculous way the media reaches out to women. In this episode she tackles birth control commercials from Seasonique, Yaz and NuvaRing.

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When the Food and Drug Administration approved for marketing a version of Bayer’s Yaz birth control pill fortified with folic acid, known as Beyaz, the public took notice. Why pack a vitamin shown to reduce birth defects of the brain and spine in a pill that prevents pregnancies? The answer was that while the pill has a 99.9 percent effective rate, not all women take the pill perfectly.

But folic acid also offered other benefits, some experts claimed. Since folic acid lowers blood levels of the protein homocystine, which is linked to heart and blood vessel disease and other medical problems, some scientists suggested that the B vitamin could also lower the risk of heart disease, stroke or cancer.

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