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

You could call it a public relations maneuver — Bayer Healthcare’s new website encouraging women to come to them with questions and advice about contraception instead of relying on biased bloggers or the Internet. The unbranded video features blindfolded women handling a rhino and trying to guess what it is. Awkward? Maybe. At the very least, BayerforWomen.com has captured the attention of Medical Marketing & Media. But, what makes Bayer a reliable source for women?

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A Virginia woman has filed a lawsuit against the makers of Yaz birth control pill, claiming the oral contraceptive damaged her gallbladder and drove her to attempt suicide. Megan M. Stewart, 21, filed the 11-count complaint against Bayer Corporation last month, adding to the more than 1,000 lawsuits filed against the pharmaceutical company by women who allege they were not adequately warned of the risks involved with taking Yaz, also known as Yasmin and Ocella.

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District Judge David Herndon is ordering sales representatives who pushed the oral contraceptives Yasmin, Yaz, Ocella and Gianvi to produce all their files and communications for national litigation. The order covers “all written materials, video and/or audio tapes” and includes training materials, e-mails, voice mail transcripts, summaries of meetings, incentive and goal plans, and all communications between representatives and managers. Herndon also ordered Bayer Health Care Pharmaceuticals, Bayer Schering Pharma, Barr Laboratories, and Teva Pharmaceuticals to produce records from their facilities.

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Despina Papparis says her daughter Chloe is alive by “sheer luck.” The Canadian teenager, now 18, was rushed to the hospital after suffering from bad migraines and vomiting that was originally thought to be symptoms of the swine flu. But an emergency room doctor ordered a CT scan that found five blood clots in her brain. Doctors said if she had she waited one more day to seek treatment, she would have died. But it was what they said caused the malady that took the Papparises by surprise. They said her birth control pills were to blame.

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The year Leah Mayfield died, Bayer HealthCare made $600 million on its popular birth control pill, Yaz. The drug, also known by the brand name Yasmin and the generic brand Ocella, was touted for the added benefit of stomping out the bothersome symptoms of severe premenstrual syndrome, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). It is the combination of ethinyl estradiol and the diuretic drospirenone that make Yaz different than other birth control pills. But that combination has proven deadly to numerous women who have taken it, including 20-year-old Leah.

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More than 50 women in Indiana are suing Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals Inc., the makers of Yaz, Yasmin and its generic brand Ocella, claiming the birth control pills caused them heart attacks and strokes. The women are among hundreds across the country who say they were not appropriately warned of the risk of serious adverse events associated with the drugs.

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The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Washington D.C. has chosen the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Illinois in East St. Louis to handle multidistrict litigation for what could be as many as 25,000 Yaz lawsuits. Chief Judge David Herndon will preside over the pre-trial proceedings, which have been filed by plaintiffs in all parts of the country against Bayer, the manufacturer of the popular oral contraceptive.

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A 30-year-old mother of three has joined the hundreds of women who have filed lawsuits against Bayer HealthCare, alleging that her use of the birth-control pill Yaz caused her to develop life-threatening blood clots in her left leg.

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Attorneys representing women who have been seriously harmed by Yaz expect that the number of lawsuits against Bayer will escalate dramatically in the coming years, possibly involving thousands of plaintiffs. A 41-year-old writer from Bethesda, Maryland, who is one of the most recent plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against Bayer, recently described her experience taking the drug to the Washington Times.

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A Pittsburgh woman has joined a lawsuit against Bayer, claiming that her teenage daughter was injured and nearly died as a result of taking Yaz. Dana Kraus, the plaintiff, told Pittsburgh’s WTAE that her 15-year-old daughter Katie had been taking the birth control drug for 6 months before she started experiencing severe side effects, which began with the sensation of suffocating.

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