NuvaRing Stroke Lawsuit Filed Over Birth Control Ring Risks

A Pennsylvania woman has filed a lawsuit over NuvaRing, after suffering a stroke that was allegedly caused by the popular birth control ring. 

The complaint was filed by Aimee L. Flynn in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on February 3, indicating that Flynn used the Nuva Ring contraceptive from October 2008 through February 2010.

According to allegations raised in the lawsuit, Flynn suffered a stroke on February 5, 2010. The lawsuit names Merck & Co., Organon Pharmaceuticals, Akzo Nobel NV and Schering-Plough Corporation as defendants. Organon is a subsidiary of Shering-Plough, which was purchased by Merck.

Flynn’s lawsuit accuses the defendants of strict liability, breach of warranty, negligence and fraud. She is seeking both compensatory damages for her injuries and punitive damages.

NuvaRing is a form of birth control that releases a combination of etonogestrel and ethinyl estradiol through a small ring that is inserted into the vagina once a month.

In late 2011, the FDA published a birth control study that found that the NuvaRing raised the risk of blood clots by 56% when compared to older birth control pills. Women who used the NuvaRing were at increased risk of DVT, pulmonary embolism and arterial thrombotic events such as heart attacks and strokes.

Flynn joins a growing number of other women who have filed a NuvaRing lawsuit in courts throughout the United States. All of the complaints involves similar allegations that the manufacturer failed to adequately warn about the risk of blood clots from NuvaRing side effects.

In the U.S. federal court system, all NuvaRing injury cases has been consolidated for pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, which is centralized before U.S. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Flynn’s claim is likely to be transferred to that court to be included in the MDL.

Parties are scheduled to review a plan for starting potential NuvaRing settlement discussions at a hearing on February 28.