Yaz's impact on women's lives
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.
