The MDL in Illinois just got a little bit larger after Alexis Carrier filed her Yaz lawsuit recently. The suit was filed in the Southern District of Illinois amid claims that she suffered from serious side effects linked to the pills after taking them between May 2006 and October 11, 2011.
Carrier’s lawsuit claims that she developed deep vein thrombosis on or around October 11, 2011. She is suing Bayer, the makers of Yaz and Yasmin, and is claiming that the company failed to properly warn her of the dangers linked to the pills. She also states that if she knew how dangerous the pills were, she never would have taken them in the first place.
Yaz, Yasmin and other drospirenone-based pills have been linked to heart attacks, strokes, gallbladder disease, kidney stones, irritable bowel syndrome and blood clots that can lead to deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms. It is for this reason that the pills have been the subject of thousands of lawsuits including Carrier’s. The fourth generation pills have also been the subject of more than one panel advisory meeting that attempted to assess the pills’ links to blood clots. Unfortunately, the panel voted to keep the pills on the market instead of recalling them. The panel’s decision met with much controversy when it was discovered that at least four of the panelists had financial ties to Bayer. Instead of the recall, the panel opted to include stricter warnings on the labels of Yaz, Yasmin and other drospirenone-based pills.
Drospirenone is a synthetic progestin that is the main active ingredient in Yaz. Even with numerous studies supporting drospirenone’s links to blood clots that cause deep vein thrombosis, doctors continue to prescribe it to young women every day. That is part of the reason why nearly 15,000 lawsuits have already been filed, and why more continue to be filed every day.
