On July 11, 2012, two Colorado women—Evelyn Heidi Cottle and Tara Goggin—filed a Yaz lawsuit in the MDL in the Southern District of Illinois. The women are claiming that the suffered from injuries after taking Yaz and Yasmin, both made by Bayer.
Both women took the pills for just a couple of months before being afflicted with the injuries, most notably deep vein thrombosis which occurs when a blood clots is in the legs. In Cottle’s complaint, she states that she first started taking Yaz in May 2010, and she stopped taking it in October 2010. During that time, she was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis.
Goggin’s claim states that she first started using Yasmin in September 2011 and stopped in December of the same year. She states that because of her Yasmin use, she suffered from deep vein thrombosis and a pulmonary embolism in December 2011. Both of the women are claiming that they wouldn’t have taken the medication if they both knew beforehand how dangerous the pills were. The women’s cases join thousands of others that have been filed by other women and their families who have suffered from the same conditions. Other side effects caused by drospirenone (the main active ingredient in Yaz and Yasmin) include heart attacks, strokes and gallbladder disease. Most recently, irritable bowel syndrome and kidney stones also were linked to Yaz use.
One thing that may help plaintiffs in these Yaz lawsuits is that Bayer recently agreed to a $110 million settlement, which covers about 500 lawsuits. This move just goes to show that the company is acknowledging some sort of guilt in how it failed to properly warn patients about the blood clots that have been linked to the drugs. Hopefully Bayer will continue to settle lawsuits filed against them and finally help patients receive some compensation for their injuries.
