Depo Shot Lawsuit Filed Over Serious Brain Tumor Injuries

Merck knew about intracranial meningioma risks from Depo-Provera birth control shots since at least the early 80s, lawsuit alleges.

A Louisiana woman has filed a lawsuit challenging why Depo-Provera birth control shots still carry no warning about the risk of intracranial meningiomas, despite growing scientific evidence and increasing reports from women who developed the condition after using the drug.

The complaint (PDF) was brought by Catendra Welcome in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida on April 30, alleging that Pfizer Inc. has intentionally avoided warning women and the medical community about all of the potential side effects of the “Depo shot.”

The Depo-Provera shot was approved in 1992, as a form of birth control that involves receiving a quarterly injection of medroxyprogesterone, a synthetic version of the hormone progesterone. The Depo shot has been used by more than 70 million women in the U.S., following decades of marketing that emphasized its reliability over other contraceptives.

However, women like Welcome began filing Depo shot lawsuits earlier this year after studies published in late 2024 linked Depo-Provera to brain tumor risks. The tumors, known as intracranial meningioma, can be life-threatening, and frequently require surgical intervention. Even when surgery is successful, patients may be left with permanent cognitive or neurological impairments.

According to Welcome’s lawsuit, she began receiving Depo-Provera injections in 2000 after her doctor prescribed the contraceptive. She continued to receive the shots regularly, leading to repeated exposure over the years.

Welcome indicates she began experiencing “concerning” symptoms over time, such as severe, persistent headaches. Finally, in August 2022, doctors detected an intracranial meningioma in her right temporal lobe following an MRI and CT scan.

She underwent brain surgery that same month, as physicians sought to remove as much of the tumor as they could. Following the surgery, Welcome also had to undergo radiation therapy to treat what was left in October and November of 2022.

The lawsuit indicates she remains under close medical observation and requires regular medical monitoring.

Welcome was unaware of the link between the Depo shot and brain tumor risks until very recently, and the lawsuit notes that there are still no intracranial meningioma label warnings on the injections in the U.S., despite women around the world being given that courtesy.

“To date, the label in the United States for Depo-Provera still makes no mention of the increased risk to patients of developing intracranial meningiomas despite the fact that the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom labels now list meningioma under the ‘special warnings and precautions for use’ section and advise EU patients to speak with their doctors before using Depo-Provera if they have any history of meningioma,” the lawsuit states. “Moreover, the Canadian label for Depo-Provera has listed meningioma among its ‘Post-Market Adverse Drug Reactions’ since at least 2015.”

According to the lawsuit, it has been known since at least 1983 that meningioma cells have an unusually large number of progesterone receptors, and the company should have known that regular injections of large amounts of a synthetic version of progesterone could increase the recipient’s brain tumor risks.

However, the lawsuit alleges that the manufacturers intentionally misled women and healthcare providers through deceptive marketing and advertising, falsely portraying Depo-Provera as safe in order to protect their profits.

Welcome presents claims of failure to warn, design defect, negligence, negligent failure to warn, negligent design defect, negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent misrepresentation, and breach of express and implied warranty.

May 2025 Depo Shot Lawsuits Update

Welcome’s lawsuit will join about 300 similar claims currently centralized as part of a Depo-Provera lawsuit MDL (multidistrict litigation) in the Northern District of Florida under U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, who is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

In an effort to resolve the litigation quickly, Judge Rodgers is already pushing toward early test trials. She has selected a small group of pilot cases to be prepared to go before juries 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.