The recent recommendations from a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee about safety concerns with contraceptives may make women more leery when deciding which birth control is best for them. But even for women who are currently on birth control, understanding the risks is vital.
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.
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel said Friday that the Ortho Evra birth control patch, made by Johnson & Johnson, should remain on the market despite an elevated risk for blood clots. The panel voted 19-5 in favor of patch as an alternative contraceptive for women who are unable to take a daily birth control pill.
Stronger warnings on packages of a newer class of birth control pills and government ruling to restrict the availability of the morning-after pill may make women leery of birth control in general, which could increase the rate of unwanted pregnancies or abortions, some advocacy groups warn.
Why did an advisory panel of experts for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not vote to ban the popular birth control pill Yaz and other pills of its generation containing the hormone drospirenone, instead opting to recommend that the pills carry a stronger warning for life-threatening blood clots?
A new study backs up concerns of previous studies that show birth control pills containing the hormone drospirenone, such as Yaz and Yasmin, are more likely to cause deadly blood clots than oral contraceptives made with older generation hormones.
Yaz, and other birth control pills made with the hormone drospirenone, have been shown in studies to put women at greater risk for developing deadly blood clots, yet generic versions of the drug are still being approved for sale in the United States. Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. has just been granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Vestura, its generic version of Bayer’s Yaz.
Sid Wolfe, head of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, was stripped of his voting rights on a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel just before the committee was to review the safety of the popular birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin. Wolfe’s consumer advocacy group has waged a campaign warning women about what it perceives to be the dangerous risk of blood clots with oral contraceptives containing the hormone drospirenone, such as Yaz and Yasmin.
Packs of Yaz and other birth control pills containing the hormone drospirenone should be updated to include a warning that the pills may be more likely to cause life threatening blood clots than older oral contraceptives, according to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel. The expert board was charged by the FDA with reviewing new data on the safety of the pills and recommending what action the federal agency should take.
Women who recently gave birth and are older than 34 or who have had a C-section should not take oral contraceptives that contain estrogen, according to researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Studies show the pills could increase the risk of older women developing blood clots if taken within six weeks after delivering a baby. Blood clots, if they travel to the brain or lungs, can cause strokes, respiratory problems, and even death. All new mothers, regardless of age, are also advised not to take estrogen-containing oral contraceptives in the first three weeks following delivery.
