The Yaz MDL in Illinois has added yet another lawsuit to its numbers after another woman suffered from blood clots that led to her having a stroke. Strokes are just one of the serious side effects that have been linked to the controversial oral contraceptive.
Cama Frisbie filed her Yaz lawsuit in the District Court in the Southern District of Illinois on May 30, 2012. In her lawsuit, Frisbie is claiming that she took Yaz from March 2008 until September 2008. The pills caused her to develop a blood clot that wound up causing her to have a stroke on September 18, 2008. Research has proven that a main ingredient in Yaz causes blood clots. That ingredient, dropsirenone, is a synthetic progestin that also causes heart attacks, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms and gallbladder disease.
For this lawsuit, Frisbie is suing Bayer, the makers of Yaz, Teva; the makers of the generic version of Yaz called Ocella, and Barr Laboratories. Frisbie wants Teva and Barr to be held liable because Teva makes the generic version of Yaz and Barr packaged and distributed the pills before the company was bought out by Teva. Frisbie maintains that she took both the brand named Yasmin and the generic Ocella before she developed her blood clots. She accuses the defendants of not properly warning her of the dangers linked to Yaz before she took it.
Bayer was likely named in the lawsuit because of a Supreme Court decision in 2011 that ruled that generic drug companies like Teva can’t be held liable for side effects suffered by claimants on the basis of plaintiffs claiming that they were not properly warned because they need only to duplicate what the brand name drug warnings say. For this reason, many potential plaintiffs have been forced to amend their lawsuits against generic drug companies to include the brand name makers of the drugs. However, this tactic is working and Bayer has already settled at least 500 lawsuits to the tune of $110 million.
