Bayer's Lawyers Ask Yaz Victims for Personal Information

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Greenberg & Bederman

Have you ever been questioned on the witness stand or in a deposition? It isn’t fun.

The main job of the opposing counsel is to make the jury doubt the validity of your testimony. This means they will do everything short of calling you a liar. They will pick apart your story, obsess over irrelevant details of your testimony and call your motives into question.

If that doesn’t work, the opposing counsel often has no problems with getting personal. They will often ask you questions about your life that has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand. The reason they do this is because they want to make you appear untrustworthy to the judge or jury.

Fortunately, for thousands of women across the country, the judge presiding over the Yaz birth control pill case will be placing limits on these sorts of questions.

For those of you who don’t know, there have been hundreds of lawsuits filed against Bayer over their line of birth control pills. These pills, which are marketed under the names of Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella, contain drospirenone, which is a synthetic variation of the hormone progestin. This variation has been shown to increase the level of potassium in the bloodstream of the women who use these birth control pills. This can cause deep vein thrombosis, which is the formation of blood clots in the veins and arteries of the legs. Quite often, theses clots break apart, and the remnants travel through the bloodstream, causing blockages in the lungs, heart or brain.

Due to the large number of lawsuits that were all filed under similar circumstances (users of these pills being hospitalized due to pulmonary embolisms, strokes or heart attacks,) the suits were consolidated into multi-district litigation. This means that the general ground rules of the cases will be the same, and that certain pieces of evidence will be considered as a given rather than having to be presented over and over again.

On Friday the eleventh, a hearing was held in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court to determine these general ground rules for a yaz lawsuit. Bayer’s lawyers were seeking permission to force the plaintiffs in these Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella cases to fill out a questionnaire that would make them detail any methods of birth control that they have used besides hormonal birth control.

From here it is a very slippery slope to asking plaintiffs about how many sexual partners they have had, or how long they have been using birth control, or any manner of sleazy questions that would serve to do nothing but make the plaintiffs in this case appear to have somehow deserved what happened to them. This is the same sort of deflective questioning that many defense lawyers still use when questioning rape victims.

Judge Sandra Mazer Moss viewed the idea of the questionnaire as both inappropriate and a potential invasion of privacy:

During the hearing, Judge Sandra Mazer Moss, coordinating judge of Philadelphia's mass torts program, said she was surprised the defendants weren't asking how many partners the female plaintiffs had.

"Then we could put out a brochure and everyone will know," Moss said.

Judge Moss did mention that she might allow the defendants to obtain some information about prior contraceptive use among the plaintiffs, but she made it clear that she would not allow the proceedings to degenerate into an interrogation about the sex lives of the victims.

We also are having a hard time discerning what the motives would be for asking about past birth control use in forms that don’t involve hormonal replacement. The question at hand is whether the hormone in Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella has been causing blood clots. Condoms, IUD’s and cervical caps involve no hormones whatsoever. We can only intimate that the reason to bring this up is to publically embarrass the plaintiffs. This tactic is actually more than just being spiteful. If a woman finds out that she will have to disclose information that is very personal, it might be enough to get her to drop the case. If that seems like a cold hearted tactic, do bear in mind that there is quite a lot at stake with these cases. This isn’t just one woman who had a bad experience with these pills. This involves hundreds of women all over the country who have experienced severe medical problems, and sadly, there have even been deaths. Bayer will be sure to do anything within their power to whittle down the number of lawsuits that they will be facing, and that includes intimidation through public humiliation. With that in mind, we are pleased that Judge Moss did not allow this irrelevant and insulting questionnaire to be pursued.

Greenberg and Bederman is currently accepting cases involving women in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured or hospitalized due to the use of these birth control pills. If you or a loved one has suffered from a stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism or gallbladder disease due to the use of Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella, do not hesitate to contact our yaz lawyer, Andy Bederman, for a free yaz legal consultation.

To watch our yaz video on you tube, please click yaz lawyer video.

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Yaz Lawsuits

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Greenberg & Bederman

Yaz Lawsuits

Our Federal Court system did something very wise earlier this month. Being mindful of the fact that several lawsuits were being filed all over the country due to the harmful and even deadly side effects of Bayer’s line of birth control pills (Yaz, Yasmin and the generic version, Oscella,) all of these lawsuits were consolidated in MDL-2100, Yasmin and YAZ Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation.

“MDL” stands for “Multi-District Legislation,” and what this means is that several suits have been filed in multiple districts over similar circumstances. In the case of Bayer’s birth control pills, hundreds of women have been suffering from similar injuries due to blood clotting after using them.

Rather than force each individual suit to go through individual court processes in their respective districts, the Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation can consolidate all the pretrial work. In other words, rather than have 300 separate plaintiffs present 300 different versions of what damages they received, and rather than have 300 separate experts hired by Bayer explain why each of these 300 separate plaintiffs are mistaken about their complaints, the JPML can simply bring all the plaintiffs together under the umbrella of one group of accepted evidence.

 

This does not mean that all the yaz lawsuit cases are to be handled by one attorney, or that this yaz lawsuit has been turned into a class action lawsuit. What it does mean is that, essentially, all the pre-trial evidence that was admitted during this consolidation will be used in all of the Federal cases. So rather than one attorney for one woman saying “We believe that our client’s use of Yaz caused blood clotting, which led to a pulmonary embolism for which she was hospitalized,” and having that testimony and evidence only counting for one particular case, it is taken as a given that since there are several yaz lawsuits involving Yaz users suffering from pulmonary embolisms, the evidence accepted by the JPML can be used in all of the Federal cases. In other words, each individual case involving Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella now has a common pool of established evidence that both the plaintiffs and defendants must work under.

This is good for several reasons. In the first place, most trials can be time consuming, particularly if the defendant has promised to defend his case “vigorously,” as Bayer has promised to do. If each plaintiff has to essentially start from scratch (meaning establish their own evidence, call their own witnesses, etc.) over a case that has been tried dozens or even hundreds of times, it would take that much longer for each yaz or yasmin lawsuit to come to a conclusion. 

Consolidation also saves costs for the plaintiffs. Individual plaintiffs normally have to pay for the costs of depositions, which in this case would involve scientists and corporate reps from Bayer. A situation like that actually works in Bayer’s favor, as this could involve calling in dozens or even hundreds of separate witnesses. The costs of all this could actually be quite prohibitive for an individual attorney. But by turning these cases over to multi-district legislation, all the plaintiffs that are involved can share the costs of pretrial discovery. And since all of these plaintiffs will essentially be using the same testimony as pre-trial evidence, all of the pre-trial discovery work only has to happen once.

This decision by the JPML should also keep some level of consistency from case to case. As much as we would like to pretend that all judges view the law and precedent in exactly the same way, this is definitely not the case. One judge might view a piece of evidence as irrelevant while another might view it as perfectly relevant. Consolidation establishes which evidence is admissible and which is not before the individual trials even start.

The end result of this consolidation should be a streamlined and efficient trial template that will save time and money for everyone involved. And considering the damage that these defective yaz and yasmin birth control pills are doing to women all over the country and all over the world, the last thing that any of these victims need is the standard delaying and smokescreen tactics that are considered standard operating procedure in most of the trials that big pharmaceutical companies find themselves involved in.

Make no mistake about it: Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella are dangerous drugs that are causing serious injuries among otherwise healthy women. Women in their teens, twenties and thirties are being felled by strokes and pulmonary embolisms on a regular basis, and the only common characteristic that these women shared was the fact that they were taking one of Bayer’s line of birth control pills. Will Bayer has every right to their day in court, what they should not have is the opportunity to grind the process to a halt with delays and denials in the hopes that any plaintiffs will simply give up.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. area law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to women who have been injured from taking Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella. This recent consolidation has made the process much easier for women who have been injured to get to their day in court. If you or a loved one in Northern Virginia, the District, Southern Maryland or Baltimore has been injured or hospitalized due to the use of Bayer’s line of birth control pills, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free yaz or yasmin 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.

To learn more about yaz, yasmin, or oscella dangers, please vist our website and click on the yaz page, or go to our youtube site and watch our yaz attorney video.
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Yaz and Yasmin Should be Recalled?

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Greenberg & Bederman

 Yaz Stroke Lawyers MD, DC, VA

One of the biggest selling products of the pharmaceutical company Bayer are a line of birth control pills that go by the names of Yaz and Yasmin. Key elements of the marketing strategy of these pills are what could be billed as peripheral benefits. Aside from the obvious purpose of the pill (avoiding pregnancy,) Bayer is also claiming that the pill helps prevent acne, and even helps users deal with some of the more emotionally charged aspects of the menstrual cycle:

“Can the pill be good for you? Can you feel OK when you're on it? Is it doing anything positive for you besides preventing an unwanted pregnancy? The answer to all these questions is yes! Discover it for yourself.”

If Yaz and Yasmine worked perfectly and had no potentially dangerous side effects, then we would have no problems whatsoever with Bayer touting these other aspects of the pill. But the fact is that there have been some quite serious allegations of very real danger to the users of these pills, and ignoring these while touting other minor aspects of the products to increase the customer base strikes us as the height of irresponsibility.

It also strikes us as very sadly familiar. There is a long history of corporate irresponsibility when it comes to women and birth control, and the Yaz line of pills are simply the latest examples.

In the early 1970’s, a company named A.H. Robbins began an aggressive marketing campaign for a new product called the Dalkon Shield. The Shield was an intra-uterine device (IUD) that was presented as the safest and most effective way for women to avoid getting pregnant. There wasn’t a pill that you had to take every day. There wasn’t anything that you had to remember to do. In fact, the strongest marketing aspect for this device was that a woman could simply have it inserted and then could practically forget it was there.

 

That’s what A.H. Robbins said, anyway. What was not mentioned in the marketing campaign was that this device was, like many pharmaceutical products before and since, tested in a rushed and slipshod manner and put on the market before they realized that something was going very, very wrong. The only real test that was performed on the Shield was one that determined whether or not it prevented pregnancy. Any other side effects were not considered or tested for.

The Dalkon Shield caused severe pelvic infections in over 200,000 American women, with the worst cases resulting in infertility and even death. What made the episode even more shameful was that A.H. Robbins fought tooth and nail for each and every case that was filed against them for damages, to the point that it was close to twenty years before any victims or their families received any compensation.

The Dalkon Shield is considered a watershed case because it caused both government agencies and manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices to seriously overhaul the way that they tested and marketed their products. As a result of this infamous IUD, products involving the reproductive functions of women have improved dramatically with regards to safety.

But as much as birth control products and devices have improved, there are still very real dangers involved in some of the products out there. In 2002, Johnson and Johnson released the Ortho Evra Birth Control Patch, which is a transdermal device that is meant to be worn for a week at a time. While both the patch and standard birth control pills work the same way (using the hormones progestin and estrogen to prevent eggs from being released from the ovaries for fertilization,) the main difference is that the hormones in pills are filtered and diluted through the digestive system, while the hormones in the patch are administered through the skin directly to the bloodstream. As a result, your average patch user is carrying 60% more estrogen in her bloodstream than the average user of a pill.

The problem here is that heightened levels of estrogen in the blood stream can lead to thromboembolism, which is the formation of blood clots in the legs. Blood clots can and will travel throughout the bloodstream, where they can end up in the lungs or the heart.

The first high profile victim of a pulmonary embolism was a perfectly healthy 18 year old girl named Zakiya Kennedy, who collapsed on a subway platform in Manhattan and died on the way to the hospital in April of 2004. Johnson and Johnson’s response was to deny everything, despite the fact that a CBS News story revealed that:

“…the company's own records reveal that it received some 500 reports of serious problems associated with the patch between April 2002 and December 2004.”

What followed was the inevitable incredibly lengthy bureaucratic ping pong match between Johnson and Johnson and the FDA, in which the FDA made the suggestion that perhaps Johnson and Johnson should include the dangers of blood clotting on the label, and Johnson and Johnson was given a lengthy opportunity to explain why they didn’t think it was necessary, and the FDA took a very long time to consider Johnson and Johnson’s explanations, all while more than a few of the users of this patch were not only suffering from serious adverse effects, but were also quietly receiving cash settlements, as reported in The New York Post in April of 2006:

"Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical of Raritan, N.J., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has settled a dozen lawsuits for millions of dollars in the last few months, and more than 100 other suits are pending."

Finally, in January of 2008, the FDA ordered Johnson and Johnson to mention prominently the potential dangers of using this product. But all this really did was provide Johnson and Johnson with the opportunity to say to anyone who got hurt “Look, we told you this might happen. The warning is right there on the box.” The Ortho Evra birth control patch is still available for sale to this day.

You would think that with such a high profile product failure to use as an example, other pharmaceutical companies would stay well away from any sort of birth control that utilizes elevated levels of hormones and their accompanying dangers of blood clots, but Bayer apparently had no compunction whatsoever.

Which brings us to the Yaz line of birth control pills.

The culprit here is a variation on progestin called drospirenone, which is not used by any other birth control pill on the market. And again, we seem to be having the same problems with clotting that we had with the birth control patch, along with a host of others, including kidney failure, strokes, heart attacks, and, unfortunately, deaths:

“Over 50 reports of Yasmin or Yaz deaths were received by the FDA between the first quarter of 2004 and the third quarter of 2008, according to some of the complaints filed in the United States. The deaths involved women as young as 17 and included cardiac arrests, pulmonary embolisms and strokes, with elevated levels of potassium in the blood frequently reported.”

We would like to make the suggestion that perhaps simply making a bigger and bolder label on the box is not the solution here. While it is true that the percentage of Yaz users who suffer severe injuries is comparatively small, we have to wonder what sort of twisted arithmetic is going on over at Bayer when they can consider even a few of their customers dying or suffering from strokes as an acceptable outcome. Under no circumstances should any product be on the market where regular use has the potential to kill you, no matter how remote the outcome.

Recent studies published in the British Medical Journal reveal that women who use Yaz™ or Yasmin™ oral contraceptives are more than twice as likely to suffer serious health complications than women using other oral contraceptives. Yaz™ and Yasmin™ have been linked with the following serious health complications:

    • heart attack
    • stroke
    • organ failure
    • gall bladder disease
    • blood clots/deep vein thrombosis
    • pulmonary embolism

 

Greenberg and Bederman is currently accepting clients who have suffered serious adverse affects from the use of either Yaz or Yasmin birth control pills. If you or a loved one have suffered from the use of Yaz or Yasmin contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today from a Yaz or Yasmin lawyer.

 

To learn more about yaz, yasmin, or oscella dangers, please vist our website and click on the yaz page, or go to our youtube site and watch our yaz attorney video.

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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