An industry update by GEN, the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, has reported that a lawsuit is underway against Bayer Corporation for the sudden death of a young woman that was taking one of their oral contraceptives.
Yaz, the birth control pill manufactured by Bayer Corporation, is at the heart of the lawsuit.
J.C., of Hackettstown, New Jersey, has filed the lawsuit on behalf of her daughter, M.P., 18. J.C. has alleged that the Yaz contraceptive caused the sudden death of her child.
The plaintiff is being represented by Wendy R. Fleishman of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, along with Lisa Rodriguez of Trujillo, Rodriguez, and Richards, LLC. The lawsuit’s announcement was made on May 10, 2011 by both attorneys.
M.P. collapsed on September 24, 2010 while she was making her way to her first class of the morning at North Carolina’s Elon University.
An emergency team quickly moved M.P. to the closest hospital where valiant efforts were made to restore her life, but all failed.
Autopsy reports showed that the cause of death to be a cardiac arrest that was triggered buy a pulmonary emboli.
A pulmonary emboli is a blood clot that has lodged itself in the lungs – possibly leading to abnormally low blood pressure, and, sudden death.
Yaz was prescribed for the 18 year-old to combat acne.
The complaint states that it was the Yaz that caused the blood clot in M.P.’s lungs that proved fatal.
J.C. said of her daughter’s untimely death, “One day she was a freshman at college so full of hope and promise and the next she was gone. I can only hope that by publicizing what happened to (M.P.), I can keep another family from having to go through this.”
Per Fleishman, “As alleged in the Complaint, Yaz is a dangerous prescription drug sold without adequate warnings about the risks of serious and fatal injuries. Bayer failed to warn doctors and patients that Yaz poses a greater risk of serious side effects than previous generations of oral contraceptives.”
The British Medical Journal printed a report a month ago citing two studies of women taking oral contraceptives containing the hormone drospirenone. They discovered that women on these hormone-laden pills had three-fold and two-fold increased risks – over earlier-generation pills that didn’t contain drospirenone.
The risk included the development of the same type of serious blood clots that killed M.P.
One study showed the risk to be three times greater for blood clots to develop in women taking contraceptives with drospirenone.
Bayer’s Yaz and Yasmin oral contraceptives were included in the findings as they contain drospirenone.
Fleishman added, “The FDA's adverse event database for Yaz reveals many serious adverse events associated with use of the drug, including many deaths, strokes, heart attacks, blood clots in young and healthy women. Bayer must take legal responsibility for injuries Yaz has inflicted on young women and teenagers across America.”
Have you lost a family member in a wrongful death circumstance? Whether or not the injury involved a faulty prescription drug, contact a personal injury lawyer from our directory to assist you in filing a lawsuit.