What's Wrong With Yaz Birth Control Pills?

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

There has been a more or less constant stream of news about Bayer’s line of birth control pills for about two years now. Sometimes the news is a flood, while other times it is merely a trickle, but as a story it has never gone away entirely.

We view this as a good thing. The more women know about the dangers of Yaz, Yasmin or Ocella birth control pills, the more likely they are to find alternative methods of birth control, which means that they will be less likely to suffer from blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, strokes, heart attacks or gall bladder disease.

These health risks appear to be coming from a specific ingredient in these pills, which is a synthetic variation of progestin called drospirenone. While there is a risk of blood clots with practically every form of birth control pill, the risk of a blood clotting episode for women taking a birth control pill with drospirenone is 75% greater, according to a study by the FDA.

One of the theories as to why these clots occur is that drospirenone might elevate the potassium levels in the blood stream, which causes the clotting mechanism in the blood to become more sensitive. The elevated potassium level in your blood essentially tricks your brain into thinking that you are bleeding somewhere, when in fact you are not. Clots have a tendency to form in the deep arterial veins in the legs. These clots then break apart into tiny pieces, and these pieces travel through the bloodstream. This is when they cause blockages in blood flow, either in the heart (heart attack,) lungs (pulmonary embolism,) or brain (stroke.)

 

The FDA had been keeping an eye on this line of drugs, initially for valid reasons but reasons that overlooked the real dangers of the drug. The FDA’s first problem with Yaz was not the clotting dangers of drospirenone, but rather the advertising campaign that Bayer attached to the product. The advertisements inferred that Yaz would help women lose weight, would cure their acne and would cure all the symptoms of PMS. This was a gross overstatement of what Yaz can do for some users. In the first place, it doesn’t help all women lose weight. Some women reported that they lost weight, but some also reported that they simply didn’t gain any weight, while some women reported that they did in fact gain a pound or two. If you ran a survey of practically every woman who was on birth control pills you would probably get the same results.

Secondly, while Yaz provided some relief of severe acne, it didn’t do much for minor to moderate acne. Nor would it “cure” PMS. Instead users who were suffering from Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) reported experiencing some relief, but it should be mentioned that there is a big difference between PMS and PMDD. It’s the equivalent of the difference between a mild headache and a crippling migraine. It was disingenuous at best for Bayer to advertise that these pills would simply take care of conditions that women find troubling as well as providing them with contraception.

Disingenuous or not, the campaign worked. Yaz became the #1 selling birth control pill in the United States, which became alarming considering the damaging and potentially deadly side effects of this birth control pill. The FDA is finally getting around to considering what to do regarding pills with drospirenone, but in the meantime the product is still on the shelves, and is still being prescribed at an alarming rate.

At Greenberg and Bederman, we have been providing legal counsel for several victims of Yaz, Yasmin or Ocella, and are still offering legal services for women who have been adversely affected by Bayer’s birth control pills. But we are still concerned about this rogue ingredient drospirenone, which Bayer doubled down on in the new pill called Beyaz, and has been picked up by other manufacturers of birth control pills. This includes the brand names Syeda and Loryna, as well as Zarah. We would urge any woman in the D.C. area who has been prescribed these pills to please re-think your prescription and ask for a different method of birth control, preferably one that does not contain drospirenone.

If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. has been injured or hospitalized due to injuries suffered from Yaz, Yasmin, Ocella, Syeda, Loryna, Zarah, or any other form of birth control with drospirenone, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.
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Cell Phone Dangers

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

The internet is currently very much buzzing with a story about cell phone use. More specifically, the story seems to be about a suspected link between heavy cell phone use and cancer.

According to a panel of experts who reported to the World Health Organization, there is a suspected increased risk for giloma, a quite malignant form of brain cancer.

The end result was the World Health Organization put cell phone use in the same category as gasoline exhaust and DDT, a pesticide known to have some health risks. Also mentioned in the report is a specific risk to children, mainly due to the fact that their skulls are thinner and provide less of a buffer between the radiation emitted from the cell phones and the brain. This bit of news might make you want to rethink purchasing your ten year old a new iPhone.

So what are we to make of all this? Are we all carrying the equivalent of miniature Chernobyl’s in our pockets and purses? Is this asbestos all over again? Is it serious radiation, or is it the sort that you get from microwave ovens? Should we compare talking on the phone to lying in a tanning bed for an hour a week?

 

It’s hard to say for sure. But considering that about 2/3rds of the population uses a cell phone on a regular basis, and has done so for almost a generation now, surely we would have all noticed if these things were particularly toxic and dangerous to our health. In fact, there was a recent study from the University of Manchester which states that while there was in fact an increase in brain cancer as cell phone use has gone up, the increase over that particular period of time was about .6 cases per 100,000 people per year.

That’s notable, to be sure, but it doesn’t seem to be an epidemic. Too much of anything can be bad for you. Consider the case of the woman who died after drinking too much water. Or for that matter, consider the spokesperson for Heart Attack Grill, who did in fact die of a heart attack. Overindulgence in water, alcohol or a fatty food is, in all probability, a much faster way to harm yourself than cell phone use.

Don’t get us wrong. We will certainly keep an eye on the dangers of cell phone use as it develops. But, the radiation dangers of cell phones are pretty far down the list in terms of ways that they can hurt people. While radiation and cancer are certainly nothing to scoff at, the danger of getting hit by a half ton vehicle moving at thirty miles an hour is certainly more immediate. And considering how many people in America think nothing of sending a text message on their phone while driving, that particular danger is much more real than getting a tumor from cell phone use.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 5,474 people were killed in 2009 due to distracted driving. By the standards of DOT, distracted driving can occur in three ways. There is visual distraction, which is what happens when you take your eyes off the road. There is manual distraction, which is what happens when you take one or more hands off the wheel. And there is cognitive distraction, which is what happens when you let your attention wander. Texting while driving is one of the rare forms of distracted driving that manages to hit visual, manual and cognitive distraction all at the same time. And anyone who has a teenager or a child in his or her twenties knows perfectly well how much texting is going on. If the 5,474 people who got killed because of distracted driving doesn’t show the dangers of texting while driving, then maybe the half a million who got injured might make it a little more clear.

So while we aren’t completely discounting the idea that cell phones might cause cancer, we are thinking that the real threat to the health and safety of others is not necessarily the phones, but rather those who use them irresponsibly. Whatever message or piece of information that you need to send, we are sure that it can wait until you either get to your destination or at least can pull over to the side of the road. Please don’t text and drive.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. who have been injured due to the actions of other drivers. This includes people who have been hurt due to someone texting while driving. If you or a loved one in the Washington, D.C. area has been injured due to a distracted driver, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.
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DC Metro Escalator Safety

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

WMATA seems to be gambling with the safety of its passengers. That might seem like a  heavy handed statement, but right now it is one that we feel comfortable making.

The first and most obvious problem is its antiquated and outdated sensor equipment on the subway tracks. This is supposed to act as a failsafe that prevents collisions between trains. As we all learned last year, it isn’t working properly. Last June there was a terrible accident on the Red Line where one train slammed directly into the back of another. 9 people died and 76 were injured.

Since the accident has occurred, the National Transportation Safety Board has made several recommendations to fix some of the more glaring errors, but according to an article in The Washington Post, not much has been done:

"There are significant deficiencies in their safety culture," said Deborah A.P. Hersman, chairman of the NTSB. "We do not see the frequency of accidents on other properties that we are seeing on Metro.

"The most disappointing . . . is when we issue recommendations and those issues do not get corrected. For us, that is a big concern about Metro," she said. Nine NTSB recommendations issued to Metro in July and September, in the aftermath of the accident, remain open, according to NTSB records.

We aren’t exactly sure why Metro is dragging its feet about making these corrections. It might be money. It might be politics. It might be a combination of the two. State politicians in Annapolis and Richmond might have a problem with paying state funds for a transit system that their immediate constituents never use. We can certainly imagine that a state delegate from Lynchburg, Virginia or Havre de Grace, Maryland would fail to see the urgency.

Whatever the reason, WMATA has continued on as if that horrible train accident never happened. We can absolutely assure them that it did. In fact, we have a few injured clients who can verify that on that day in June, there was a catastrophic system failure that resulted in 9 deaths and 76 injuries.

The second serious safety hazard doesn’t involve the trains, but instead involves escalators that allow passengers to safely get in and out of the stations. Specifically speaking, they don’t work, and the scope and size of both the number of breakdowns and the escalators themselves makes this state of affairs an accident waiting to happen.

The Washington, D.C. subway system has 570 escalators. This is more than any other subway system in the world. Due to the fact that this area was built on what was essentially marshland, our subway system has to go very deep underground. The escalator at Wheaton, for instance, goes down 230 feet. Believe it or not, this is actually the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere. The escalators at Bethesda, DuPont Circle and Woodley Park are also incredibly long. And while the escalators at Rosslyn and Clarendon don’t necessarily set records, they still are long enough to eat up over a full minute to get from the street to the station.

The way we see it, there are two potential dangers with broken escalators. The first would be the hazards involved with these escalators suddenly stopping. The stop wouldn’t even have to be a particularly jarring one for disaster to strike. One person falling down an escalator of that size and length would be catastrophic, not just for the person falling but also for anyone who happens to be on the escalator below the person falling. People can get badly hurt by falling off of a five inch curb on the side of the road, so the idea of someone falling down a crowded 230 foot escalator is so grim that it’s terrifying to think about.

The second danger is not going down, but going up. Metro might not have noticed, but not everyone who rides the subway is spry and athletic. Many of the passengers are elderly and infirm. Making them climb up 230 feet, particularly in heat that reaches upwards of 90 degrees, is something that could adversely affect their health. And if the elevators are broken (as they often are,) many passengers have no choice but to trudge up that enormous incline.

As of this writing, the escalator report for the entire WMATA system lists 62 escalators as being out of service, as well as 8 separate elevators. This reflects very poorly on WMATA. It is inconvenient, stressful, disrespectful of passengers and extremely dangerous. Among the many faults of the DC Metro system, this one is particularly galling.

Greenberg and Bederman is aninjury law firm based in Washington, D.C. We are currently offering legal help to anyone who has been injured due to negligence or poor management by the WMATA. This includes anyone who was injured while riding the subway, or anyone who was injured due to an escalator-related accident. If you or a loved one was injured on the Washington, D.C. subway system in Maryland, Washington, D.C. or Virginia, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident legal consultation.
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