Product Liability Attorney Blog

Another Yaz lawsuit was filed on November 17, 2011, in California. This time the plaintiff is Allison Zelinski; she has joined an ongoing coordinated litigation that is taking place in California Superior Court, Los Angeles. Defendants in the litigation include Bayer Corporation, Berlix Laboratories and various others that have been linked to the manufacturing and distribution of Yaz and Yasmin oral contraceptives.

Zelinski’s case has been coordinated as a tag along case to the larger proceeding that has various lawsuit plaintiffs claiming that they weren’t properly warned about the serious adverse side effects linked to the drospirenone-based birth control pills. Many of the plaintiffs have developed blood clots after taking Yaz. Blood clots are serious side effects that can lead to other potentially fatal conditions, such as heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms and deep vein thrombosis.

Yaz lawsuits against Bayer are nothing new. In fact, up to 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against the company with no end in sight yet. In those lawsuits, Bayer has been the defendant in the majority of them. The company has been accused of hiding the negative side effects of Yaz from the public and healthcare professionals alike. The FDA even ordered Bayer to change its marketing campaign to include stronger mention of the blood clot risks after various studies have proven how dangerous Yaz and Yasmin are. But still the company refuses to admit that Yaz increases the chances of women developing dangerous blood clots more than older, non-drospirenone-based pills do.

Bayer claims that their own study shows that Yaz and Yasmin aren’t any more likely to cause blood clots than pills that are composed of levonorgestrel. However, the thousands of plaintiffs in various Yaz lawsuits would strongly disagree. So far, there is no telling how long it will take before the many lawsuits are over, especially since the bellwether trials (which were supposed to begin next week) have been postponed. However, Bayer is likely going to suffer major financial losses before all the court dates are finished.

Another Yaz lawsuit was filed on November 17, 2011, in California. This time the plaintiff is Allison Zelinski; she has joined an ongoing coordinated litigation that is taking place in California Superior Court, Los Angeles. Defendants in the litigation include Bayer Corporation, Berlix Laboratories and various others that have been linked to the manufacturing and distribution of Yaz and Yasmin oral contraceptives.

Zelinski’s case has been coordinated as a tag along case to the larger proceeding that has various lawsuit plaintiffs claiming that they weren’t properly warned about the serious adverse side effects linked to the drospirenone-based birth control pills. Many of the plaintiffs have developed blood clots after taking Yaz. Blood clots are serious side effects that can lead to other potentially fatal conditions, such as heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms and deep vein thrombosis.

Yaz lawsuits against Bayer are nothing new. In fact, up to 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against the company with no end in sight yet. In those lawsuits, Bayer has been the defendant in the majority of them. The company has been accused of hiding the negative side effects of Yaz from the public and healthcare professionals alike. The FDA even ordered Bayer to change its marketing campaign to include stronger mention of the blood clot risks after various studies have proven how dangerous Yaz and Yasmin are. But still the company refuses to admit that Yaz increases the chances of women developing dangerous blood clots more than older, non-drospirenone-based pills do.

Bayer claims that their own study shows that Yaz and Yasmin aren’t any more likely to cause blood clots than pills that are composed of levonorgestrel. However, the thousands of plaintiffs in various Yaz lawsuits would strongly disagree. So far, there is no telling how long it will take before the many lawsuits are over, especially since the bellwether trials (which were supposed to begin next week) have been postponed. However, Bayer is likely going to suffer major financial losses before all the court dates are finished.

With the Bellwether trial start date just months away, more and more Yaz lawsuits are popping up all over the country. Plaintiff Jennifer Rich’s Yaz lawsuit is the most recent complaint to be added to the mass tort that is to be heard in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The complaint was filed on September 20 amid claims that taking the controversial birth control pill caused Rich to suffer from deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

Rich’s official complaint states that she developed DVT and other injuries in 2009. Her lawyers are claiming that Bayer (the makers of Yaz and its sister pill, Yasmin) “defectively manufactured the oral contraceptive, and sold it under the fraudulent pretense that it was safe.” Rich’s case also alleges that the birth control pills didn’t just cause her injuries, but also that “Bayer neglected to warn Rich and her doctor about the risks associated with the drug, including blood clots, DVT and heart attack.”

Rich is seeking to recover damages which cover a wide range of things including punitive or exemplary damages, medical expenses, lost wages and attorney fees. As well as the mass tort in Los Angeles, Rich’s case will join the thousands of other trials set to begin in New Jersey, including the Bellwether trials that are said to be underway as early as January 2012. Plaintiffs all over the country have been filing lawsuits against Bayer over its fraudulent marketing tactics which downplayed Yaz risks. In addition, the mass tort claims that the drug makers knowingly hid the negative side effects linked with the pills from the public and healthcare practitioners.

Many different studies link Yaz and its key ingredient, drosperinone, to adverse side effects which include blood clots, deep vein thrombosis, heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, gallbladder disease and death. For its part, Bayer stubbornly stands by Yaz and Yasmin, claiming that the company's own study revealed that Yaz and Yasmin are no more dangerous than any other form of birth control pill.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last month that oral contraceptives like Yaz will now be included in its coverage for free. This is all a part of the new health care requirements set by the Obama administration. This will happen in accordance to the new rules that are designed to cover a broad spectrum of preventative coverage for women.

Some of the other things that are now covered include breast pumps for women who are breast-feeding their babies and yearly physicals. One of the ways that insurance companies are expected to be able to regain some of its losses (that will occur by offering these extra services with no co-pay) is to increase their premiums. These new benefits won’t go into effect for another year,

These new guidelines being administered are going to make it a great deal easier for women to get their hands on prescription birth control pills like Yaz and Yasmin. This just points out how much more important it is going to be for women to have access to the most up-to-date risk-related information available for those products. The fact is that many women are not properly informed of the real dangers associated with prescription medications like Yaz before taking it is because drug companies use misleading advertisements to sell the products.

In the case of Yaz and Yasmin, Bayer has been sued by thousands of women and their families over just that. The company’s insistence on advertising the drug as a cure-all while downplaying the risks associated with the drug has left many women suffering from life-threatening conditions such as blood clots, thromboembolism, stroke, heart attacks, gallbladder complications and even death. As many as 50 deaths have been formally reported to the FDA with links to women taking Yaz and that amount is likely higher.

Even though the FDA sought to rectify this by forcing Bayer to include the real warnings of adverse side effects, the damage had already been done. Now that the drug will be available for free, the chances of even more women taking Yaz and Yasmin will likely increase. It is already the most popular oral contraceptive on the market. That is sad because many of those women will suffer from horrible consequences if Bayer doesn't make a bigger effort to make the risks more public.

According to a new study, American teenagers are using more birth control pills like Yaz or Yasmin. The study was conducted by Thomson Reuters and was released on Thursday.

The study says that of young women between the ages of 13 to 18, 18 percent of them have had birth control pill prescriptions filled in 2009. This amount is higher than it was in 2002. The study also shows that the kids who used commercial insurance plans to get the prescriptions for birth control pills was 63 percent higher between the years 2002-2009, and those kids who used Medicaid to fill their prescriptions increased by 38 percent. In 2009, Yaz was the most popular birth control pill on the market.

Most of the birth control prescriptions were filled by older teenagers. The 18-year-old kids that were using Medicaid represented 27.1 percent of the group taking birth control pills, whereas just 3.7 percent of kids that were taking birth control pills were 13 years old. All of the information in this study was conducted on information that was obtained from the Thompson Reuters Multi-State Medicaid Database. The database has information on more than 3 million people.

Dr. Bill Marder, who is a senior vice president and economist at Thompson Reuters, said, "These findings provide a benchmark for oral contraceptive use in the insured population." He also said that this larger number of pill users should be used when it is decided whether birth control pills like Yaz and Yasmin should be given out as a part of Obama’s health care law that focuses on preventative services.

The manufacturer of Yaz and Yasmin, Bayer, has been fighting off lawsuits filed by women who have suffered from major side effects of using the pills. The women claim that Yaz caused side effects like pulmonary embolisms, gallbladder disease and blood clots. They are also claiming that Bayer hid the negative side effects while promoting its off-label uses. The first of the trials is set to begin later on in the year.