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

When Dr. Sidney Wolfe was asked in 2009 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to join the agency’s Risk Management Advisory Committee for a 4-year term, the head of the Washington, DC-based watchdog group Public Citizen took the task to heart. He championed the removal of the longstanding painkiller Darvocet/Darvon, calling the drug “extremely dangerous” based on reports of more than 2,000 accidental deaths since 1981. He also pushed for stronger warnings on prescription drugs, including the type 2 diabetes drug Avandia, which has been linked to fatal heart attacks.

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The first of more than 10,000 lawsuits against Bayer over its birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin won’t go to trial this week as planned because a judge appointed a mediator in hopes of settling the case. The lawsuit accused Bayer of misleading women about the safety risks associated with its oral contraceptives.

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It was mere hours after Rebecca Bapp called her parents to say that she wasn’t feeling well that the 21-year-old was dead. Mysteriously, her health declined so rapidly even doctors were baffled by what was making her so ill. Not long after her parents rushed her to the hospital, she was placed on a breathing machine and sedated. She coded three times before she gave up her fight for life.

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The doctor who pronounced 24-year-old Tania Hayes dead told her mother Genevieve twice that what caused Tania’s fatal blood clot was Yasmin birth control pills. “Tania wasn’t sick,” her mother told ABC News/Australia.

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A rare and often under-reported form of stroke involving the veins and not the arteries is more common than previously thought and affects children, young adults and women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, according to a study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. This rare type of stroke is known as cerebral venous thrombosis, or CVT, and is caused by a blood clot in the dural venous sinuses, or the veins that drain blood from the brain toward the heart.

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About nine women out of 10,000 who take birth control pills experience a blood clot, compared to about half that number among women who do not take oral contraceptives. Blood clots are a serious medical issue and can lead to stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism and even death. While this risk is considered similar among all low-dose birth control pills, thousands of women have filed lawsuits against the makers of Yaz claiming they were not adequately warned that using Yaz could cause them serious injury and even death. They also allege that Yaz puts women at even greater risk of blood clots than other pills, and even puts them at jeopardy of gallbladder damage.

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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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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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Rose Kirby, 22, was vacuuming out her car when she felt a strange discomfort in her arm. Within an hour it turned into “a pink balloon,” she said. She passed it off as a bug bite or some sort of allergic reaction, but her parents were skeptical. “I was really lucky that my parents made me go to the doctor that day,” she said.

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Rebecca Anderson-Hull of Texas blames her birth control pills for damaging her brain and forcing her to need assistance walking, eating and even being understood. It happened two years ago when the 46-year-old mother of three suddenly and unexpectedly suffered a pulmonary embolism, or a blood clot in her lungs. She was rushed to the hospital but the lack of oxygen had caused massive brain damage. She will never be able to care for herself again, doctors said.

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