Depo-Provera Hearing Loss Lawsuit Filed Over Brain Tumor Side Effects

Manufacturers failed to test the popular birth control shot or warn about side effects of Depo-Provera, which allegedly caused a Florida woman to develop brain tumor symptoms years later.

A Depo-Provera lawsuit claims a woman developed signs of a brain tumor 16 years after her last injection of the birth control shot, resulting in hearing loss and constant ringing in both ears.

Mildred Estronza filed the complaint (PDF) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida on April 18, naming Pfizer, Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. LLC, and Pharmacia LLC as defendants.

Approved in the U.S. in 1992, the Depo-Provera birth control shot contains medroxyprogesterone, a synthetic form of progesterone. It has been used by more than 70 million women, following years of marketing that promoted it as a safe, reliable and convenient contraceptive.

However, Estronza now joins a growing number of women who have filed Depo-Provera lawsuits, following a French study published in March of last year linking Depo-Provera to brain tumor risks, which can be life-threatening and frequently require surgical intervention.

According to Estronza’s lawsuit, she received Depo-Provera injections from 2001 to 2003, during which time a tumor allegedly began developing in her brain as a result of the drug’s side effects.

“Unbeknownst to Plaintiff, she had a slowly growing brain tumor that would eventually grow to a size sufficient to cause the necessary mass effect and symptoms to cause her to seek medical attention,” the lawsuit states. “Not until February 2019, sixteen years after her injections, did Plaintiff develop alarming symptoms, including sensorineural bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus. Plaintiff immediately sought medical attention and underwent an MRI revealing a brain tumor.”

The complaint indicates Estronza was unaware of the link between her Depo-Provera use and the brain tumor risks until the recent studies were published. Her own brain tumor, in addition to hearing loss, has caused her to suffer loss of balance, headaches and other injuries.

Estronza claims the defendants should have known about the potential brain tumor risks since 1993, but failed to adequately study the side effects of the birth control injections until they were already on the market.

She presents claims of failure to warn, design defect, negligence, negligent design defect, negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent misrepresentation, and breach of warranty. She is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages.

Depo-Provera Brain Tumor Lawsuits

Estronza’s complaint will be consolidated for coordinated pretrial proceedings alongside at least 130 other claims currently centralized in the Northern District of Florida under U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers.

Given the shared questions of fact and law across the cases, and the likelihood that thousands of women may have developed meningiomas after receiving Depo-Provera injections since the 1990s, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) established a Depo-Provera meningioma MDL in February.

The presiding judge, Judge Rodgers, has acted quickly to push the litigation toward trial, selecting a small group of pilot cases to be prepared to go before a jury to help bring a prompt and efficient resolution to the litigation. The first Depo-Provera lawsuit is anticipated to begin by the end of 2026 or early 2027.

While the outcomes of these trials will not be binding on other Depo-Provera lawsuits, they will give the parties a chance to see how juries respond to arguments and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation, which may help the parties reach Depo-Provera settlement agreements.