About 7,000 lawsuits have been filed against Bayer by women or their family members who allege that they were not warned by Bayer that company’s birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin could put them at serious risk of life-threatening blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, and gallbladder damage. More plaintiffs are joining the lawsuit and some estimate that there could be as many as 14,000 plaintiffs in all.

While the documents are stored at a St. Louis-based law firm and are managed by one attorney with a full-time IT employee for technical support, firms across the country are helping review the documents and can access the database remotely. To date, about 150 attorneys have been trained how to use the data base, and up to 50 people review the documents as much as five days a week.

The paperwork not only includes documents related to Bayer’s Yaz and Yasmin, but also to generic versions of the drugs, including Ocella and Gianvi.

The first bellwether case trial is set for September. Aside from the federal litigation in southern Illinois, consolidated lawsuits are pending in Pennsylvania, California and New Jersey state courts.

SOURCE: Yaz Lawsuit › Bayer generates millions of pages for Yaz, Yasmin lawsuits

Yaz is considered a fourth-generation birth control pill and contains a combination of hormones known as ethinyl estradiol and drospirenone. Drospirenone also works as a diuretic.

Since Bayer Healthcare introduced Yaz to the market in the early 2000s, the company has launched three other birth control bills with similar formulations. The pills have become a favorite among young American and Canadian women, thanks to a massive marketing campaign claiming the pills help fight the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome and clear up acne.

The ads also effectively downplayed the serious side effects associated with the drug, which include blood clots, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, heart attack, stroke and gallbladder damage. Soon after the commercials hit the airwaves, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered Bayer to rerun ads clearly stating the serious side effects that the drugs could cause.

Some experts question the use of drospirenone in the pills, claiming the diuretic can cause a condition that leads to irregular heart rhythms. Those arrhythmias can cause serious health problems, including blood clots, heart attacks and strokes.

The revision ads from Bayer came too late for thousands of women, including Amie and Lauren. Both women have joined the more than 2,000 other women who claim they were injured by Yaz and filed a lawsuit against Bayer.

SOURCE: Yaz Lawsuit › Deceptive ads lead to two more lawsuits against makers of Yaz

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.

Soon after the ads began, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) slapped Bayer Healthcare with heavy fines and ordered the company to run a series of retraction ads that clearly stated the benefits of the pills as well as the risks involved.

“You may have seen some Yaz commercials recently that were not clear,” the revised ads say. “The FDA wants us to correct a few points in those ads.” Those corrections specify that the pills are not approved to tackle symptoms of PMS, but rather premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, a condition with severe emotional and physical premenstrual symptoms. The ads also more clearly reported serious side effects, including blood clot conditions such as pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, heart attacks, stroke, and gallbladder damage.

The revision ads came too late for Carole Ann. She took the pills and suffered a life-threatening blood clot in her lungs. Carole Ann is one of thousands of women in the United States and Canada who has filed a lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare alleging that the pharmaceutical company did not adequately warn her of the dangers of taking the pill. She claims she would not have taken the pill had she known of the dangers. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages including economic damages, economic damages and medical expenses, attorney’s fees, costs and other relief.

SOURCE: Yaz Lawsuit › NJ woman files lawsuit against makers of Yaz birth control

The day before she died she was treated for a knee injury, but the injury wouldn’t have caused her death, her mother, Joan Cummins, told Lehigh Valley Life. “There’s just really no reason that a healthy young woman who had a knee injury would have developed this.” Cummins has another theory as to what caused her daughter’s death – her birth control pills. “She was on Yaz … for acne,” she said. “All you have to do is Google that and look at all the lawsuits.”

Now Cummins has joined thousands of other people affected by Yaz and filed a lawsuit of her own against Bayer Healthcare, the makers of Yaz. Cummins alleges that Bayer knew Yaz was more dangerous than other oral contraceptives and put women at greater risk for life-threatening blood clots but failed to adequately warn consumers. Bayer maintains that Yaz is no more dangerous than other birth control pills.

Last April, however, Bayer agreed to update the safety labels on Yaz and the birth control pill Yasmin to warn of “the relative risk of developing venous thrombosis.” Cummins said the warning is too little, too late. “(Michelle) was 18 years old, completely healthy, at college with the world at her fingertips,” she said. “Any medication we take, we’re so used to seeing may cause … all these side effects. You just think, ‘That won’t happen. My daughter will be fine…’”

SOURCE: Yaz Lawsuit › Mother sues Yaz maker for daughter’s untimely death

The plaintiff, who resides in Belpre, Ohio, had been taking Yaz for about a year when she developed deep vein thrombosis in her leg. She spent three days in the hospital, where like many other women who use Yaz, she was put on a regimen of blood thinners to dissolve the clot and reduce the swelling in her leg.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a very serious type of blood clot that can lead to serious complications and death if not treated properly. Clots that form a DVT can become dislodged, traveling through the bloodstream to the lungs and causing a pulmonary embolism, resulting in permanent damage to the lung. DVT can also cause stroke, cardiac arrest, and other potentially deadly conditions.

Yaz contains drospirenone, a synthetic progestin used in Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella, which is a generic form of Yasmin. Drospirenone has been shown to increase potassium levels in some women who take the drug, which can lead to DVT and affect the function of several organs, including the heart.

The Ohio plaintiff’s lawsuit was filed in New Jersey Superior Court. The suit alleges that the plaintiff’s injuries were the result of Bayer’s failure to adequately warn consumers of the drug’s risks. Her attorney claims that Bayer knew Yaz to be more dangerous than other birth-control pills, but chose to downplay the drug’s hazards.

SOURCE: Yaz Lawsuit › Ohio mother sues Bayer, alleging Yaz caused blood clot

The plaintiff claims that at the time, she was not aware the FDA had not approved Yaz for the treatment of skin conditions. In an extensive and aggressive marketing campaign, Bayer touted its birth control drug as an effective treatment for acne and symptoms associated with Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) – conditions for which the FDA never tested or approved Yaz.

In October 2008, FDA officials warned Bayer that its Yaz ads intentionally mislead and confused viewers by overstating the drug’s effectiveness, overselling its benefits, and not adequately communicating the drug’s potential for serious side effects, including blood clots, cardiac arrest, and gallbladder disease. According to the FDA, the commercials used distracting visuals, multiple scene changes, and background music that effectively interfered with the audio presentation about the serious risks associated with the drug.

“Bayer promoted Yaz with the slogan ‘the difference a little chemistry can make,’” the plaintiff said. “What Bayer did not disclose was how negative that difference can be. Yaz gave me life-threatening injuries that have forever altered my life.”

After several months of Yaz therapy, the plaintiff developed an acute pain in her left shoulder and had difficulty breathing. A visit to the doctor revealed the plaintiff had developed blood clots in both her lungs. She was hospitalized immediately and treated successfully, but just one month later she developed gallstones and had to undergo surgery for their removal.

The plaintiff alleges that she “suffered months of anxiety and nausea related to (the) medical procedures and drugs given to treat the adverse side effects (she) developed from taking Yaz.”

The complaint charges that had Bayer properly warned patients about the dangers of using Yaz strictly as an acne treatment, the plaintiff could have avoided serious injury.

The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, where Bayer’s American operations are based. The plaintiff seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory damages.

SOURCE: Yaz Lawsuit › Injured by Yaz, SC nurse files lawsuit against Bayer