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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Medical Malpractice Database Errors

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

Most reasonable people would not make an important decision without having all the facts. It’s one of the reasons simply getting a job is so difficult these days. Potential employers don’t just want to know your work history. They also want to know your criminal record, and in some cases they want to know your credit score. That might seem like an unnecessary intrusion, but if you happen to be applying for a job as an accountant, your perspective employers might want to know if you are thousands of dollars in debt. Or, if you happen to be applying for a job as a day care worker, the people who run the place would want to know if you happen to have a criminal history of child abuse.

If you were buying a car, you would want to know if the company making it has a history of putting out defective products. If you were entrusting a financial advisor, you would want to know if he had a history of fraud or shady dealings. If you are investing your time or money into something, or if you are entrusting your safety or your children’s safety with someone, having as much information as you can about this person is not just important; it is crucial.

 

As or right now, people in Connecticut are not able to make informed decisions about their health care; specifically because the state’s online medical database is omitting medical malpractice information:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Connecticut Public Health Department's online doctor database frequently omits information about past malpractice payments, making it difficult for patients to make informed decisions.

The Hartford Courant reports Monday that there are more than 100 doctors on the site whose malpractice cases are missing. That's about one out of every six who have made payments in recent years for harming or killing patients who appear to have clean records.

If you happen to live in Connecticut, and you happen to be choosing a doctor or a surgeon, wouldn’t you want to know if this person has made a certain number of mistakes? Particularly if the number of doctors who have made serious or life-ending mistakes is one out of every six doctors? Those are about the same odds that you get with Russian roulette.

To be sure, you shouldn’t make the assumption that if your doctor has one malpractice payout in a twenty year career that he is a bad doctor. In fact, if a doctor had that kind of record we would be the first in line to make an appointment with him. But if a doctor has a seriously spotty record, with multiple lawsuits and multiple mistakes and multiple unnecessary patient deaths, wouldn’t you want to know that before you selected him to do the surgery? Wouldn’t you find that to be a crucial piece of information? We certainly would.

We aren’t sure why this information is being left off the new website. When they made the initial switch to the new website, they estimated that the profiles would be complete and updated (meaning that the medical malpractice information would be posted) by April of 2010, but then that date switched to June, then August, then October, and they finally just gave up giving an estimated date. We would hope that at some point in the near future they would update the site with all of the relevant information, because in the meantime, there are some doctors on the list who are having their professional histories whitewashed quite thoroughly.

For instance, there is one surgeon in Connecticut who failed to control bleeding in a patient who was known to have difficulties with blood clotting. There was also one doctor who had lost or settled four medical malpractice suits in the past seven years. Not to mention a doctor who was hit with a $36 million verdict due to a botched Caesarian section birth which led to the child having cerebral palsy.

Again, we think these are the sort of things that patients should know about before selecting a doctor. It’s a pity that Connecticut doesn’t feel the same way.

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland, and we offer legal assistance to victims of medical malpractice in Washington, D.C, Virginia and Maryland. We have helped victims of surgical errors, wrong diagnosis, prescription errors, hospital infections and injuries due to unnecessary delay of treatment.  If you or a loved one has been injured due to the negligence of a doctor, surgeon or other medical professional, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation today.
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DC Metro Wants Wrongful Death Lawsuit Dismissed

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

It’s been exactly one year and one day since the Red Line Metro accident that killed nine people and injured seventy.  Due to faulty signaling systems and a host of other systematic safety failures, one red line train slammed into the back of another.

Like many Washingtonians, this accident hit particularly close to home for us. The offices of Greenberg and Bederman are right next to the Silver Spring Metro station on the red line, which many of us here ride into work every day.  It could have very easily been one of the people in our office who got injured or killed.

This accident was more than a personal tragedy for the families of the victims.  In fact, it could hardly be categorized an “accident.” The safety systems of the entire Metro subway system in the D.C. area were so neglected and out of date that any “accident” should have been called“inevitability.”

The National Transportation Safety Board initiated a study on how WMATA operates, and in their final report they determined that there were over 100 serious problems in our Metro system that have yet to be addressed, even as we are reaching the one year anniversary of the deadliest crash in the history of WMATA.

What makes matters even worse is that WMATA has decided to avoid culpability in this case by filing a motion to dismiss awrongful death andnegligence lawsuit filed by most of the victims’ families.  It’s as if they are pretending that these deaths and injuries were just some random, freak occurrence rather than the result of a system wide failure of technology and personnel.

According to Metro Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein, this motion to dismiss the case was “partial” and “routine:”

“Even if granted, this would not deprive anyone of their day in court or their right to a jury trial. Neither of our motions separately or together seeks dismissal of the suit against Metro in its entirety."

Why bother to file a motion to dismiss at all? What about this lawsuit does WMATA find unfair or excessive? There are nine people who are no longer living because WMATA had not bothered to do proper maintenance on their outdated sensor system. There are sons and daughters, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who have lost someone due to utter negligence. Which “part” of that does WMATA not understand?

Judging by the progress that they have made in terms of making safety improvements, we suspect that there is a great deal that they don’t understand. They seem to be looking at this disaster not in terms of human life and human suffering, but rather in dollars and cents. It appears to be too expensive to make necessary safety improvements. It appears to be too expensive to compensate the families of the victims fairly. So put off the improvements and repairs. File those motions to dismiss. Just roll the dice and see if you can avoid responsibility altogether.

Call us crazy, but we’re pretty sure that’s not the attitude that a public transportation agency is supposed to take. We’re also pretty sure that anything that involves getting members of the public from one place to another should be as safe as humanly possible. Safety inspections and improvements should not be put off or deliberated. They should be done early and often. The consequences for not doing so became tragically evident exactly one year ago today.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in Washington, D.C. We are currently representing injury victims from the Red Line Metro crash, and are also offering legal help to anyone who has been injured while riding any form of public transportation in the D.C. area. If you or a loved one has been injured on a bus, streetcar or subway in Maryland, Virginia or D.C, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

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