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

Europe’s biggest drug company, Bayer AG, has won a lawsuit in the United Kingdom, protecting the patent on its birth control pill Yasmin against a challenge by Hungary’s Gedeon Richter Nyrt. Justice Christopher Floyd ruled in the High Court of London that the inventions the patents covered for Yasmin would not have been “obvious” to experts in the industry. The ruling is in contrast to a case in the United States in 2008, in which the Yasmin patent was found to be invalid because it was “obvious” to other experts in the field. That ruling opened the door for Israel’s massive generic drug manufacturer, Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., to sell a version of Yasmin, known as Ocella, in the United States.

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Tennis star Serena Williams has been sidelined because of pulmonary embolisms, or blood clots in the arteries of the lungs. Often, pulmonary embolisms are caused by blood clots that originate in the legs and then travel up to the lungs. This type of blood clots are known as deep vein thrombosis, or DVTs.

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A new research study suggests that women who take the so-called “mini” birth control pill may be more than three times more likely to become diabetic after pregnancy. The risk is even greater if a woman uses the mini-pill after having gestational diabetes. Mini pills contain just one hormone, progestin, compared to a combination of two hormones, progesterone and estrogen, in traditional birth control pills. The latter variety is far more popular in the United States.

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Six months ago, Lucy* was released from the hospital. Just months after starting Yaz birth control pills, the young woman was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism (PE), gallstones, and an unknown growth on her adrenal gland. “The doctors told me Yaz was the reason for the PE and that I was very lucky,” she wrote to a community board on Yaz on Medications.com. “I work in a hospital and had no knowledge of these problems until I entered the ER by ambulance on Saturday.”

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Two more women have filed lawsuits against the makers of Yaz birth control, alleging they were seriously injured after taking the oral contraceptives. They claim had they known the dangers associated with Yaz, they would have never risked their life by taking that type of birth control pill. Amie Nardone and Lauren Powell, both of New Jersey, say Yaz caused them to suffer gallstones and a blood clot, respectively.

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Carole Ann Grohan says she never knew taking Yaz birth control pills could put her life at risk. Instead, the New Jersey woman bought into the flashy commercials about how the oral contraceptive helped clear complexions and protected women from the nasty side effects of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

Carole Ann wasn’t the only woman swayed by the playful advertisements – Yaz soon became the best selling birth control pill in the nation. However, Carole Ann found out the hard way that women like her were being fooled by Bayer Healthcare, the makers of Yaz. She suffered a blood clot in her lungs, known as a pulmonary embolism.

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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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A Canadian doctor’s group worries that the large number of lawsuits filed against Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills because of deadly side effects may cause young women to panic and not use contraceptives, resulting in unwanted pregnancies.

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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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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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