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.
Bayer didn’t want anyone to find out its top-selling birth control pill Yasmin could be more dangerous than older oral contraceptives, and even went so far as to promote the pill for uses for which it had not been approved, according to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report unsealed in federal court last week.
Health insurance plans will soon be required to cover birth control at no cost to women, thanks to new requirements ordered by the Obama administration. The new rules are part of a broad spectrum of women’s preventative coverage and include breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual “well woman” physical, counseling on how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, and other services with no co-pay. Insurance companies can recoup any losses by increasing their premiums. The new benefits won’t go into effect for at least another year.
More women are choosing contraceptives such as IUDs and implants, according to a study published in the June issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Data shows that using these forms of reversible contraception increased from 2.4 percent in 2002 to 5.6 percent from 2006 to 2008. Public health experts say women are wooed by these types of contraception because they are highly effective and they can virtually be forgotten about once inserted. Alternatively, birth control pills, also known to be highly effective, have to be taken daily.
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.
Bayer AG has its eyes set on the Latin American country Brazil to win back profits lost from lawsuits and bad press surrounding its blockbuster birth control pill Yaz. The German pharmaceutical company announced this week that it expects to post double-digit annual growth in Brazil through the next four years, from 15 billion in 2008 to a whopping $27 billion by 2015.
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.
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.
Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals is a leader in the development and manufacturing of medications worldwide, but not all of its drugs appear to have the consumer’s best interest in mind. Consider the company’s lineup of birth control pills. All “four sisters” have one thing in common – a bad reputation. They put women at risk for serious and life threatening health problems.
Let’s take a closer look at these “four sisters” of Bayer oral contraceptives:
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.
