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

The benefits of using birth control pills outweigh the risks, according to a Style Bistro story, which supports the use of oral contraceptives for the treatment of acne. There are three birth control pills that are FDA-approved for such use – Ortho Tri-Cyclen, Estrostep, and Yaz. The latter of these is one of the nation’s most prescribed birth control pills. It is also under a new safety review by the FDA based on data that links use of the pills to serious and life threatening health risks.

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Pharmaceutical manufacturer Bayer is facing thousands of lawsuits questioning the safety of its birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin. The pills, which contain a combination of drospirenone and ethinyl estradiol, have been found in studies to put women at greater risk for life threatening blood clots than oral contraceptives with other types of hormones. Both Yaz and Yasmin have generic equivalents, which leaves some women questioning whether generic brands are safer than the brand name drugs.

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Bayer has lost European patent protection for birth control pill Yasmin, opening the door for generic competition of its second-best selling drug product. Yasmin and its sister oral contraceptives fell from being Bayer’s top selling drug after it lost the United States patent protection.

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The family of a 15-year-old North Carolina girl who was taking the birth control pill Yasmin to treat her acne and then died of a pulmonary embolism, are suing the drug’s maker Bayer, claiming the company did not adequately warn users of the potentially deadly health risks associated with its oral contraceptive.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada have announced they are reviewing studies on the health risks associated with the birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, as well as their generic equivalents. An early review of studies comparing oral contraceptives with the hormone drospirenone, such as Yaz and Yasmin, with pills containing another type of progestin, show that drospirenone-containing pills increase women’s risk for blood clots. The studies were published in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal.

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News of lawsuits filed by women (or the surviving relatives for those who are deceased) who suffered blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, gallbladder damage, and sudden death, after taking the popular birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, might leave some young women unfazed. After all, despite statistics, the younger generation often feels invincible. But some women are heeding the warnings that hormone contraceptive products have caused serious injury and death, and they are asking for safer, more natural alternatives for birth control.

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Health Canada, Canada’s regulator of drugs, is conducting a safety review of the birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin to determine if the pills put women at greater risk for blood clots than other oral contraceptives.

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it will keep a watchful eye on studies comparing drospirenone-containing birth control pills with levonorgestrel-containing oral contraceptives to determine if one is more dangerous to users. Two recent studies published in the British Medical Journal found pills with drospirenone were two to three times more likely to cause blood clots in women who used them.

Birth control pills with the hormone drospirenone include Bayer’s Yaz, Yasmin, Beyaz and Safyral, as well as generics Ocella, Gianvi, Loryna, Syeda, and Zarah. The FDA says it hopes to have data later this summer from an 800,000-person study it commissioned to examine the risks.

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Two new studies showing an increased risk in venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots in the lungs, in women who use Yaz birth control pills and oral contraceptives with similar hormone formulations, has resulted in a special drug safety notification from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Yaz, made by Bayer, contains the progestin drospirenone. The same hormone is used in Bayer’s Yasmin, Beyaz and Safyral, as well as generics such as Ocella, Gianvi, Loryna, Syeda, and Zarah.

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It didn’t make sense to Joan Cummins of Hackettstown, N.J., that her daughter Michelle Pfleger would drop dead. The college freshman died suddenly last fall, which was later determined by medical examiners to have been caused by a pulmonary thromboemboli, or blood clots in her lungs.

Cummins believes it was her daughter’s birth control pills, which she also took for the treatment of acne, that caused her death. She has filed suit against the Bayer Corp., makers of the birth control Yaz, and several of its divisions. The lawsuit was filed as part of a national class-action lawsuit against the makers of Yaz.

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