Bellwether Update: Bayer Wants "Special Master" to Oversee Depositions
With the Bellwether Yaz trial trying to get underway, Bayer, the makers of the popular but controversial birth control pill, has requested that a "special master" oversee the depositions given by experts overseas. Bayer is based in Germany.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers are naturally opposing the request for a Special Master by claiming that they already agreed to the protocol for the depositions. So far, it is not known what the judge in the case is going to decide; however, the parties are expected to conduct another status conference today.
The bellwether trial has been instituted to help prevent clogging up the courts with all of the lawsuits being filed. The pretrial proceedings will likely force the trials to be delayed until early 2012 now that both sides have agreed that they will need more time in order to sift through all of the evidence. If the judge grants the delay, at least two more lawsuits will have to wait to see a courtroom.
A recent study that was conducted by Thomson Reuters and released two weeks ago reported that Yaz and Yasmin were the most popular oral contraceptives on the market today among teens between the ages of 13-18. That is a scary thought since the side effects that these girls can suffer from are life-threatening. While Bayer has stopped the misleading advertising of the products as recommended by the FDA, the filling of prescriptions hasn’t ebbed at all.
Yaz and Yasmin lawsuits have been filed in the thousands and may get to be as many 25,000 before the filings are over, according to current estimates. Yaz has been associated with severe side effects that are proving to be fatal for many patients. Some of the side effects include strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, deep vein thrombosis, blood clots and gallbladder disease requiring surgery to correct.
