Yaz On Trial : Yaz Birth Control Lawsuit : Info on Yasmin & Ocella Side Effects

There are now over 400 lawsuits pending against the makers of Yaz, and it is anticipated that thousands more will be filed in the future. Behind each of these lawsuits is a story of a woman who suffered a serious injury after taking Yaz, many of whom will be living with the side effects of their injuries for the rest of their lives.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Yaz, would have a hard time denying that California Yaz user Susan Galinis’s life has changed forever. Susan, the mother of twins, suffered a stroke one month after she began taking Yaz. The stroke caused her permanent and severe brain damage, fundamentally changing her life and the lives of her family forever. There is also Katie, a Pennsylvania Yaz user who was just 15 years old when she suffered a pulmonary embolism while taking Yaz. Katie was forced to undergo extensive surgery when doctors found that she had two blood clots, one in each pulmonary artery. Another woman, Ohio Yaz user Anne Marie Eakins also developed blood clots in both lungs after taking Yaz, resulting in her losing partial use of her right lung. Anne, like many of the other women we have spoken with, asked her doctor about Yaz after seeing the commercials. “To be perfectly honest,” she said, “ I asked my doctor about Yaz because I had seen the commercial and it mentioned helping control your period symptoms and acne, which was very attractive to me… I didn’t think it was going to be worse than any other pill.”

Then there are the thousands of women who have suffered gallbladder problems, such as one young woman who at just 22 years old when she began suffering gallbladder attacks while taking Yaz. She, like many Yaz users, was young, healthy and had no prior or family history of gallbladder problems; yet, after taking Yaz, she developed gallbladder attacks so severe that she had to undergo surgery to have her gallbladder removed.

These stories are just glimpses of the impact Yaz has had on women's lives. As more lawsuits are filed and the word spreads, more women’s stories will be heard.

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Since Judge Herndon appointed the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the Yaz and Yasmin Multi-District Litigation (MDL) the main focus has been case organization, specifically what procedures are needed for efficient case management.

To keep this matter from getting too cluttered and costly, Judge Herndon and those of us on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee and defense counsel have focused on the case management and organizational issues early on, which we hope will make everything run more smoothly down the road in the litigation. At the December status conference, we discussed details such as the protocol for protecting confidential information in the case, how new complaints filed on behalf of injured women and their families will be organized, and what additional procedures may be required since Bayer is a foreign company. At the close of the conference we were also introduced to Ms. Debra Ward, the Judge’s new law clerk specifically assigned to the Yaz and Yasmin MDL proceeding. Ms. Ward will be assisting Judge Herndon in organizing the case going forward.

In summary, the Court is primarily in organizational mode at this time. As Judge Herndon said during the December status conference, “the Court would like this case to move along efficiently and effectively. Both sides are working diligent[ly] and in good faith to move this litigation at a fast pace and court is encouraged by that. [The] Court has had to intervene very little.”

The next status conference in the case is March 4, 2010.

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Many of our clients have suffered blood clot injuries after taking Yaz, Yasmin or Ocella. One of the most serious blood clot injuries is “deep vein thrombosis” – also known as “DVT” – which is when a blood clot forms in the veins, usually the legs. If not treated in time, a DVT can lead to other serious health problems such as a pulmonary embolism or a stroke. Part of the controversy surrounding Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella is that recent medical studies have found that the synthetic hormone contained in these birth control pills known as drospirenone is associated with a significantly higher risk of patients developing DVT and other related health problems.

Recently Baltimore’s local NBC news station ran a story about how hospitals and doctors are treating people who have been diagnosed with a DVT or related injuries:

NBC Baltimore (WBAL): Treating Deep Vein Thrombosis

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