Lawsuit Over Stroke From Yasmin Filed by Broadway Actress

A Broadway actress is suing Bayer over their popular birth control pills, alleging that she suffered a stroke from Yasmin side effects.

The Yasmin stroke lawsuit was filed in a Bronx, New York, court by Brenda Hamilton, an understudy in the hit play about the witches from the Wizard of Oz, “Wicked.” Hamilton’s lawsuit claims she suffered a stroke in May 2007 at the age of 27, after taking Yasmin birth control pills for two years. 

Her complaint is one of more than 1,100 Yaz and Yasmin lawsuits filed in the United States on behalf of women who allege that they suffered injuries as a result of the increased risk of blood clots from Yasmin. All federal lawsuits over Yasmin and Yaz are consolidated in an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, centralized in the Southern District of Illinois for pretrial litigation. There are also state level Yaz and Yasmin lawsuits consolidated in Pennsylvania and New Jersey courts.

Yasmin, the newer version, Yaz, and the generic Ocella are similar birth control pills that contain drospirenone, a new “fourth” generation progestin. Drospirenone is only found in these birth control pills. Drospirenone, or drsp, impacts the body’s normal mechanism of regulating a balance between salt and water, which could result in elevated potassium levels. This can cause a condition known as hyperkalemia, which is linked to potentially life-threatening heart problems and other health issues.

Hamilton’s lawsuit alleges that Bayer knew Yasmin put women at higher risk of stroke and other health problems than other birth control pills, but failed to warn them or their doctors.

Earlier this year, the FDA approved label changes to Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills that included updated information on the risk of blood clots gleaned from a number of studies, including one that found that drospirenone put women at higher risk of blood clots and strokes than many other progestins.