Yaz, Yasmin, Oscella, and Strokes

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Greenberg & Bederman

   

 

"I remember him. He died the same year I did." - H.L. Mencken

 To fully understand that quote, you have to understand the context in which it was said.

H.L. Mencken was the founder of The Baltimore Sun, and was easily one of the most controversial and entertaining writers of his day. In one of the world’s great ironies, Mr. Mencken suffered a stroke towards the end of his life that left him unable to read or write. It was during this period of time that he began to refer to himself in the past tense, often beginning sentences with "Back when I was alive," or "Since my death…"

Mencken was a remarkable man, especially in that he was able to very succinctly sum up exactly what that stroke did to his ability to live his life. He was a writer who was unable to write, a newspaper publisher who was unable to read the very publication that he started.

A stroke is essentially an internal wound to the brain. The causes can be either too little blood to the brain (which is called an ischemic stroke,) or too much brain in the skull (which is called a hemorrhagic stroke.) The end result of either one of these types of stroke could be paralysis or loss of muscle movement, difficulty in talking or swallowing, memory loss or difficulties in comprehension, or severe and ceaseless pain.

 

Depending on the level of the stroke, the damage that is suffered can be temporary, but in many cases (such as Mencken’s,) it isn’t.

One particularly common brand of ischemic stroke is called a thrombotic stroke, which occurs when a blood clot forms somewhere else in the body. A piece of this clot breaks off, and then travels through the bloodstream, where it can get trapped in a crucial vein or artery. When it gets caught in the brain, the end result is that not enough blood gets through, which leads to a stroke.

Regardless of whether the stroke is major or minor, whether it has effects that are temporary or permanent, the recovery and recuperation processes (if they are possible at all) are both expensive and time consuming. Aside from the medical bills that will pile up during the initial hospitalization, quite often stroke victims have to undergo all sorts of physical and occupational therapies in order to regain some semblance of normalcy. There is also the real possibility that the victim will not be able to return to work, which makes the idea of someone in their twenties or thirties suffering a stroke a particularly nasty one.

We are bringing this up not because we feel that everyone needs an education on how strokes occur, but rather because there is a birth control pill that has been on the market for years now that increases the likelihood that blood clotting will occur, which therefore increases the likelihood that otherwise fit and healthy women will suffer from strokes.

What is causing this increased likelihood of clotting is an ingredient in the pills called drisperinone, which is a synthetic variant of progestin. A side effect of this ingredient is that it causes an increase in the bloodstream potassium levels of women who use it, which can induce the clotting mechanism. While this can be a risk for any form of birth control pill, the use of drispirinone in this pill has raised the odds of runaway clotting dramatically.

The only pills on the market that use drispirenone go under the names of Yaz and Yasmin, which are both made by the Bayer Corporation. There is also a generic version available that goes under the name of Oscella. And users of all three of these types of pills are suffering from hospitalizations due to strokes and pulmonary embolisms.

Bayer undertook an expensive and flashy marketing scheme that emphasized what can only be called the peripheral benefits of these pills. Women were shown extolling the virtues of Yaz, testifying that it could not only prevent pregnancies, but could also prevent acne and some of the more emotionally turbulent symptoms of PMS. Yasmin was marketed the same way.

Nowhere in these initial advertisements was it mentioned that the use of drispirenone could increase the likelihood of blood clotting. Bayer was actually forced by the FDA to re-do their advertisements so that these dangers were mentioned. But this was surely a case of too little too late. The FDA has received hundreds of reports of hospitalizations among users of Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella, and even fifty seperate reports of deaths.

To this day, Bayer is still maintaining that the odds of serious blood clotting among it’s users is no higher than any other form of birth control pill, but clearly the FDA’s decision on Bayer’s advertising techniques and a recent study by the British Medical Journal indicate otherwise.

Greenberg and Bederman is currently making every effort to help women who took these pills in good faith and were harmed in the process. In their quest for a larger share of the birth control market, Bayer ignored the clear dangers of drispirenone and understated the risks in their advertisements. If you or a loved one has been injured due to the use of Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

To learn more about yaz side effects, please read our yaz page.  To learn more abour our yaz lawyer, Andy Bederman, please read yaz bio or watch his yaz lawyer video.
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