Drug company ‘check lists’ influence patient choice
How ethical is it for pharmaceutical companies to target consumers with advertising for their prescription drugs?
News Tagged ‘PMDD’
Combined birth control pills provide limited PMS pain improvement
Combined birth control pills can help reduce the pain of menstrual cramps, but not much, according to a Swedish longitudinal study.
Birth control called ‘secondary cause of death’ in young woman taking Yaz
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.
Why would FDA panel not ban Yaz over blood clot risk?
Why did an advisory panel of experts for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not vote to ban the popular birth control pill Yaz and other pills of its generation containing the hormone drospirenone, instead opting to recommend that the pills carry a stronger warning for life-threatening blood clots?
Bayer dismisses new studies showing higher blood clot risk with Yaz, Yasmin
Bayer isn’t backing down. The pharmaceutical giant that is making billions off sales of it’s popular birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, says two new studies that suggest the company’s oral contraceptives put women at greater risk for blood clots than older generation pills, are flawed.
Yaz is most popular birth control pill among teenagers
More teenagers are using birth control pills than ever before, and by far the most popular brand they are choosing is Yaz, according to a new study by Thomson Reuters. But some worry that using Bayer Healthcare’s blockbuster oral contraceptive may be putting those young girls at greater risk for serious health problems.
Alert your friends to the dangers of Yaz, Yasmin
When Yaz and Yasmin hit the market, they were touted to be different than other birth control pills because they could curb the annoying symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and even clear up unsightly acne. The marketing campaign worked quite well for Bayer HealthCare. The pills became the No. 1 selling oral contraceptives in the United States, with many of its users being young women and teenagers who asked their doctors for the pills by name.
But the honeymoon would soon end for Bayer, as reports of potentially fatal side effects from Yaz and Yasmin began to surface. Bayer was also slapped by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with fines and ordered to spend millions on new ads to clarify its benefits (for example, the pills are approved for the treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD, and not PMS) and clearly state the risk for side effects such as blood clots.
Lawsuits continue to mount against makers of Yaz
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.
Parody of BCP commercials does not diminish safety concerns
Sarah Haskins of Target Women, a recurring segment on Current TV’s weekly television show, infoMania, is known to some for her take on the often-ridiculous way the media reaches out to women. In this episode she tackles birth control commercials from Seasonique, Yaz and NuvaRing.
New birth control pill contains folic acid, but is the B vitamin ‘all that’?
When the Food and Drug Administration approved for marketing a version of Bayer’s Yaz birth control pill fortified with folic acid, known as Beyaz, the public took notice. Why pack a vitamin shown to reduce birth defects of the brain and spine in a pill that prevents pregnancies? The answer was that while the pill has a 99.9 percent effective rate, not all women take the pill perfectly.
But folic acid also offered other benefits, some experts claimed. Since folic acid lowers blood levels of the protein homocystine, which is linked to heart and blood vessel disease and other medical problems, some scientists suggested that the B vitamin could also lower the risk of heart disease, stroke or cancer.