“The decision to begin taking Yaz was catastrophic in our lives,” says Christopher Hull of Bedford, Texas, in a response to a comment on the April 19, 2010, Los Angeles Times article “New Pills, New Issues,” which addressed the safety of birth control pills. Ivan Garcia of Los Angeles had argued the article was “discouraging” for an up-and-coming college student considering the medical field.
Even before Bayer Healthcare agreed to change the label on its No. 1 selling birth control pills, Yaz and Yasmin, to include an elevated risk of blood clots and other health problems, a citizen’s right advocacy group placed the oral contraceptive on its “Do Not Use” list. The move by Public Citizen was in direct response to the mounting lawsuits filed against the company alleging the pills caused high potassium levels that can cause the heart to slow down and allow life-threatening blood clots to form.
When Bayer Healthcare launched its new style birth control pills Yasmin and Yaz in 2001 and 2006, respectively, the drugs were marketed under the guise that they were safer than other oral contraceptives. Formulated with a synthetic hormone and containing a diuretic, drospirenone, the pills were touted as having an added benefit of clearing up problem acne and easing the symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). But the honeymoon has ended for Bayer, which is now facing more than a thousand lawsuits from women who said they were not adequately warned that the pills could cause serious and life-threatening health problems such as blood clots and gallbladder problems.
Next month the birth control pill celebrates its 50th birthday in the United States. Since then, women’s choices in contraceptives have branched out from pills to patches and implants and injections and so on. Despite the many options now available, there are about 3.1 million unplanned pregnancies each year. Some speculate that women just don’t feel safe taking birth control.
Bayer HealthCare has added new information on the labels of its blockbuster birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin to warn users that the risk of developing blood clots while taking the pills are similar to the risks with other oral contraceptives. The label change comes on the heels of hundreds of lawsuits filed both in the United States and Canada by women who say they were injured by Yaz or Yasmin but were not adequately warned of the risks associated with taking the pills. Bayer agreed to make the changes to the pills’ labels based on two large, multiyear studies of more than 120,000 women taking contraceptives in the U.S. and the U.K.
Despina Papparis says her daughter Chloe is alive by “sheer luck.” The Canadian teenager, now 18, was rushed to the hospital after suffering from bad migraines and vomiting that was originally thought to be symptoms of the swine flu. But an emergency room doctor ordered a CT scan that found five blood clots in her brain. Doctors said if she had she waited one more day to seek treatment, she would have died. But it was what they said caused the malady that took the Papparises by surprise. They said her birth control pills were to blame.
Another contraceptive for women is finding its way into the courtroom, following in the footsteps of Bayer Healthcare’s Yaz pill and Johnson & Johnson’s Ortho Evra patch. This time Merck & Co. Inc., is facing a slew of lawsuits over the drug company’s Nuvaring. Plaintiffs claim that the “first and only, once-a-month vaginal birth control ring” is more dangerous than older and equally effective products on the market and has caused them to develop life-threatening blood clots.
A survey commissioned by Bayer Healthcare of 1,000 women aged 20 to 40 found that 39 percent had slept with a boyfriend by their third date. But many didn’t tell even their closest friends. As many as 11 percent slept with their most recent partner on the first date, and another 28 percent say they gave in to their sexual wantings by the second or third date. Despite all this intimacy, the poll also found that more than half of the women surveyed – 56 percent – say that the person they are sleeping with is not the person they are most comfortable discussing contraception with. Ten percent said that even discussing birth control with their doctors made them uneasy.
Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, has closed its formal investigation into contraceptives containing drospirenone, following the death of one young woman and of another woman who is now severely disabled. The agency says that although the risk of thrombosis, or blood clots, is higher with this generation of contraceptives, the risk remains “within reasonable limits.” Swissmedic says the drug will remain on the market there but the drugs are required to have updated information on their label to reflect an increased risk of serious injury.
Bayer Schering Pharma has announced it will update the label in the European market for its oral contraceptive Yasmin, a combination of ethinylestradiol and the diuretic drospirenone, also known by the brand name Yaz and the generic brand Ocella. The new label will include results of four epidemiological studies conducted by independent investigators that show the risk for venous thromboembolism, or blood clots, in Yasmin users is comparable to the risk found for women who use levonorgestrel-containing oral contraceptives.
