Dozens Of Local Women Sue Bayer Over Birth Control Pill | News

SILVER SPRING, Md.  (WUSA) - "I was hyperventilating I was in so much pain," said Lottie Green of Bethesda about the second time the same night she went to the hospital.

The first time, doctors thought this otherwise healthy 41-year-old woman had a kidney stone, and then pneumonia. She was sent home but a few hours later got so sick, she could hardly breathe. She took a cab to hospital where a pulmonologist found the real problem. Blood clots in her lungs.

"He said 'You have the largest clog I've ever seen in my 30 years of practice.' He said I was very lucky that it didn't break up and kill me by going to my brain or heart," said Green.

She's certain the cause of her blood clots was the birth control pill she was on... YAZ, made by Bayer and marketed to young women.

"If there were a problem with a drug causing these problems in men, say... causing appendages to fall off, they'd take it off the market immediately," said Green.

She's suing Bayer and wants the company to take the pills off the market. Andy Bederman is her attorney.

"Estrogen is know to cause blood clotting. And Bayer developed a synthetic progestin called drospirenone, which is really the culprit here. The premise was that by using drospirenone they could use less estrogen and decrease the risk of clotting. However, the opposite is happening.

Bederman says studies show drospirenone increases the incident of blood clotting. Bayer disputes that.

Bayer also makes the birth control pill called Yasmin. Bederman says it identical to YAZ. He represents about 65 Maryland woman suing Bayer over YAZ and Yasmin. There are about 3,000 such lawsuits across the country.

Bederman says about 75 percent of his cases involve blood clot problems. One of the women died. The other 25 percent involve gastrointestinal problems in which women lost their gall bladders.

Bederman says Bayer makes $2 billion dollars a year on these drugs, and believes that's why the company is refusing to take them off the market.

Bayer says YAZ and Yasmin are safe and that using them poses no greater risk of developing blood clots than using other oral contraceptives. That risk, along with others, are on the pills' labels.

Bayer says patient safety is their top priority and that it will defend itself vigorously against these lawsuits.