An understudy for the Broadway show “Wicked” has joined a lawsuit against Bayer HealthCare, claiming the company’s best-seller birth control pill Yasmin caused her to suffer a stroke at the young age of 27. Brenda Hamilton had been on the pill two years when in May 2007 she became ill. She has since recovered.
Dawn Varrechio, a mother of four, was shocked to discover that her breathing problems were due to blood clots in both of her lungs. But she became angry when she found out her birth control pills were the culprit. “It’s scary to think that at 35, you could be gone, like that quickly,” she told CBS3 News.
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.
An estimated 20 million Americans have gallbladder disease, a condition in which the bile in the gallbladder becomes concentrated and thickens. The condition most often affects people over 60 years of age, says Dr. Ronald Hoffman, an active clinician, author, radio host and lecturer. However, many young women have developed the condition, thanks to their oral contraceptive.
Writer-comedian Sarah Haskins has produced another segment of her popular satire on Current TV’s Target: Women, this time calling out the absurdity of television advertising in marketing drugs to women.
A new report in the New York Times about Bayer Healthcare’s bestselling oral contraceptive Yaz brings to light some serious ethical questions surrounding the company’s testing and marketing of what some studies suggest is a potentially dangerous drug for many women.
Yaz and Yasmin lawsuits filed against Bayer Healthcare in Pennsylvania state courts were consolidated into a mass tort last week by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge Sandra Mazer Moss, who appointed 3 Pennsylvania attorneys to serve as liaison counsel for the plaintiffs.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has admonished German drug manufacturer Bayer for failing to test a vital ingredient used in Yaz and other birth control drugs according to American standards.
In October 2008, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) sent a letter of warning to Bayer Healthcare, Inc., citing the drug manufacturer for misrepresentations in television commercials for Yaz, an oral contraceptive. The ads featured the usual women’s health metaphors showing happy ladies frolicking in a field releasing balloons and such. But according to the FDA, the real problem with the ads included overstating the drug’s effectiveness, overselling its benefits, and not adequately communicating its possible serious side effects, including cardiac arrest and gallbladder disease.
