Yaz DVT Lawsuit Filed in New Jersey

An Ohio woman has filed a lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey state court over a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) from Yaz, claiming that the company’s popular birth control pill caused her to suffer a debilitating blood clot in the leg.

The Yaz DVT lawsuit was filed last month in the Superior Court of New Jersey by 30 year-old Mae Walker. According to the complaint, Walker was hospitalized for three days due to a DVT from Yaz, and is now on blood thinning medication that she may need to take for the rest of her life. The deep vein thrombosis has also left her with pain in her legs and prevents the mother of three young children from lifting heavy objects.

About 300 other women have filed a similar Yaz lawsuit or Yasmin lawsuit against Bayer, alleging that the company failed to adequately research the birth control pills and warn about an increased risk of various health problems, such as strokes, heart attacks, blood clots in the legs (DVT), blood clots that travel to the lungs (pulmonary embolism), gallbladder disease and sudden death.

At least 200 Yaz or Yasmin cases are consolidated in a federal MDL, or multidistrict litigation, centralized in the Southern District of Illinois. About another 50 lawsuits are consolidated in Pennsylvania state court in Philadelphia and a request was filed earlier last month to consolidated at least 39 cases that were already pending in New Jersey state courts. As Yasmin and Yaz lawyers continue to investigate and review potential new cases, it is expected that the several thousand blood clot lawsuits will ultimately be filed in courts throughout the United States.

Yaz and Yasmin are two similar birth control pills that are manufactured by Bayer containing a combination of ethinyl estradiol, which is used in many oral contraceptives, and, drospirenone, a new type of progestin that is unique to these drugs and a generic Yasmin version sold under the brand name Ocella.

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.

According to an August 2009 study published in the British Medical Journal, birth control pills containing drospirenone, such as Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella, carry a 6.3 times increased risk of a first deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism. When compared to women taking some other types of oral birth control, the increased risk was nearly four timers more among users of Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella type birth control.

Deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, are blood clots that develop in veins deep in the body, typically in the legs. Besides being painful and debilitating at the sight of the clot, there is also a risk that the clot may break off and travel through the bloodstream to the lungs or heart, which could result in a pulmonary embolism, heart attack, stroke or death.