YAZ, Yasmin lawsuits filed locally against Bayer

 

-TribLive

12/17/2009 - Bayer Corp. was named in at least a half-dozen federal lawsuits filed this week in Pittsburgh alleging the company's birth control products called YAZ and Yasmin are unsafe and potentially deadly.

The complaints are among some 150 nationally so far that target the Robinson-based company over its marketing of the contraceptives, Bayer said.

Each of the six most recent civil complaints seek a total of $150,000 in punitive and compensatory damages. None of the plaintiffs are from the Pittsburgh area.

One such lawsuit was filed by a Columbia, Md., woman, who began taking Yasmin in January 2007 and suffered "serious and life-threatening side-effects" as a result, the complaint alleges. Those side effects include pneumonia and pulmonary embolism, the blockage of an artery in the lung by a substance that traveled through the bloodstream.

Bayer is aware of the lawsuits and will "defend itself vigorously," said spokesman Bryan Iams.

"The complaints we have reviewed so far pertain to side effects that are warned about in the labeling of all contraceptives, including ours," said Iams.

Yasmin was approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration in 2001. The agency in 2006 approved a successor drug, YAZ, which is almost identical and likewise marketed by Bayer.

The six lawsuits filed locally by plaintiffs lawyers in Orlando, Fla., allege fraud, civil conspiracy and commercial bribery. The complaints say Bayer made "false representations" that the contraceptives were "tested and found to be safe."

Bayer and the FDA reached agreement in 2008 under which the company agreed to run a $20 million corrective advertising campaign for overstating the benefits of YAZ and downplaying its risks.

A spokesman for the FDA could not be reached yesterday. But the agency's Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology said in late July it had received reports of adverse effects, and even deaths, allegedly related to the use of Yasmin. The FDA said it was conducting studies of the safety of Yasmin and YAZ.

A lawsuit against Bayer filed in Wisconsin in July said that between first-quarter 2004 and third-quarter 2008, more than 50 reports of death among YAZ and Yasmin users were filed with the agency. The complaint claimed a Wisconsin woman began using a Yasmin birth control patch in March 2006 and suffered a stroke four months later.