Articles Posted in Birth Control Drugs & Devices

Now that 95% of eligible plaintiffs have opted in, the $100 million defective medical device settlement between NuvaRing manufacturer Merck & Co. and 3,800 claimants will stand.

A district court judge had approved the birth control injury settlement earlier this year. Merck, however, could have backed out of the agreement if not enough plaintiffs agreed to join.

The company maintains that “substantial” evidence proves that the contraceptive device is safe. It is settling the NuvaRing lawsuits without denying or agreeing to the claims.

Just recently, a woman in Pennsylvania who claims that her intrauterine device moved in her uterus and perforated it has filed a Mirena IUD lawsuit. In her defective medical device complaint, the plaintiff is seeking damages from Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, the company that manufactured the contraceptive device.

This woman is one of many plaintiffs that are pursuing the medical device maker via the US court system. Just last month, another woman filed her Mirena injury lawsuit in Illinois Northern District Court for similar injuries. She said she had to undergo laparoscopic surgery to get the IUD out of her body. Meantime, in Kentucky, a federal judge has refused a motion by Bayer to dismiss a Mirena IUD case. Instead, the plaintiff was allowed to amend her complaint, which was not pled properly.

In Massachusetts, call our Boston Mirena injury lawyers today to request your free case assessment.

A report published this month in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology talks about a pregnant woman who had to get a Mirena IUD surgically removed from her body when she was three months pregnant. She actually didn’t know the device was still in her because an ultrasound procedure had failed to detect it and she thought it had fallen out.

Instead, the intrauterine device had migrated elsewhere in her body where it resided there for years. Fortunately, the removal procedure went well. However, Mirena IUD removal from a woman who is pregnant does have its risks, including possible pregnancy loss.

If you or someone you love suffered serious health complications from an IUD, please contact our Mirena injury lawyers today to request your free case evaluation. Altman & Altman, LLP represents clients with defective medical device cases against manufacturers. Mirena is made by Bayer.

Women are continuing to file defective medical device/drug injury cases against Merck & Co. Inc. and its subsidiary N.V. Organon over serious side effects caused by the hormonal birth control NuvaRing, The flexible plastic ring, which contains progestin and estrogen, has been linked to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, blood clots, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, and death. These are serious health issues for a product that is supposed to prevent pregnancy to be associated with.

One reason for the greater risks is that the progestin in NuvaRing is desogestrel, which is a third-generation hormone. According to some studies, desogestrel isn’t as safe as its predecessors, which are used in other birth control brands. (Desogestrel had even been linked to a higher risk of blood clots as far back as the 1990’s, yet, according to many plaintiffs, the two drug manufacturers did not warn patients about this possible side effect for years. Some are saying that they would have never opted to use NuvaRing if they’d known there could be such serious complications involved.)

At the moment, there is a NuvaRing Lawsuit Multidistrict Litigation taking place in Missouri in Federal Court. Your NuvaRing case can be brough to this litigation regardless of which state you live in, or, it may be to your benefit to pursue your lawsuit separately. The best way to figure out whether you have grounds for a drug injury lawsuit over your NuvaRing injuries to contact an experienced products liability firm to explore your legal options.

Another woman has filed a NuvaRing lawsuit suing Merck for products liability. In her defective medical device/dangerous drug complaint, Angela Denise Washington claims she developed a pulmonary embolism a few months after she started taking the popular internal birth control device in 2004.

NuvaRing is a vaginal ring that the user inserts close to the cervix. This is a hormonal contraceptive device that contains progestin and estrogen and it is Food and Drug Administration-approved. It. The ring releases the hormones into the body. A woman is supposed to remove the ring after three weeks and her menstrual cycle usually begins a couple of days later. Following a weeklong break, she is supposed to insert another ring into her body.

Last year, however, FDA published a birth control study that showed that compared to older birth control pills, the NuvaRing, which is an internal contraceptive, upped the risk of blood clots by 56%. There was also a study this year in the British Medical Journal that found that NuvaRing and other non-oral birth control devices generally come with a greater blood clot risk than oral contraceptives that are made of with the same hormone combination.

If you have suffered serious side effects from using a Mirena intrauterine device, please contact our defective medical device lawyers right away. Approved by the FDA as birth control in 2000, and in 2009 to treat heavy menstrual bleeding, this IUD has been linked to a number of health issues, including intestinal perforation/obstruction, abscesses, infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, uterus perforation, infertility, intrauterine pregnancy, miscarriage, vaginal erosion, ovarian cysts, uterine embedment, vaginitis, ectopic pregnancy, painful periods, group A streptococcal sepsis, breast tenderness, irregular bleeding/spotting, pelvic pain, and vaginal hemorrhage. A Mirena IUD user can also get hurt should the device become dislodged, expelled, dislocated, stuck in/perforate the uterus. It may also end up outside the uterine cavity, where adhesions and scarring can occur.

Bayer Pharma AG, the manufacturer of Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills, makes this birth control product. A plastic device, which is connected to two strings, the Mirena IUD is implanted inside the uterus. It works by slowly releasing the progestogen levonorgestrel and is expected to last five years. This contraception is recommended for moms who have had at least one child. Around 2 million women are currently using Mirena, while over 15 million have used the device since it entered the marketplace.

Three years ago, the FDA sent Bayer a warning letter noting that the medical device maker had overstated the devices’ efficacy while minimizing its risks. Mirena had been marketed to busy moms as a device that not only could help them “look and feel” great but improve partner intimacy. The IUD was even promoted through “Mirena Parties” involving Mom Central community members. The FDA’s letter noted that it had not seen any evidence indicating that Mirena users were getting such benefits and wondered why the script used at these parties did not talk about the serious risks involved.

At Altman & Altman, LLP our dangerous drug lawyers represent clients that have suffered serious health complications from a medication. One med of concern to us is Depo-Provera, an injectable form of birth control that may be upping the risk of breast cancer in young women. Depo-Provera only has progestin.

Researchers looked at over 1,000 women in the 20-44 age group that received breast cancer diagnoses and over 900 who were breast cancer-free. All of the women are from the Seattle area, and approximately 3% had used the injectable contraception in the last five years.

According to the study, which was led by epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Li at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, recent use of the contraceptive for a year or more is linked to a 2.2-fold greater risk of invasive breast cancer. Obesity, family history, pregnancy history, and age didn’t seem to be factors to this risk. (The higher cancer risk, however, appeared to go away within months after cessation of use, while women who only used Depo-Provera for less than year or who had stopped using it for more than a year didn’t show this increased cancer risk. Also, no causal connection was proven.

Li and his colleagues noted that even though the risk connected to Depo-Provera seemed to abate after discontinued use, it is still important to note whenever there possible risks involved with certain kinds of birth controls, especially as there are many alternatives to choose from. For example, a woman who has a history of breast cancer in her family may want to consider other contraception choices besides this one.

However, in US News & World Report, NY Clinical Cancer Center breast surgery director Dr. Freya Schnabel noted that there are limits to this study and more research needs to be done to shed more light on the connection between Depo-Provera and breast cancer.

Depo-Provera is made by Pfizer. The contraception is injected every three months and is used by approximately 1.2 million in this country-that’s 3.2% of contraception users, reports Guttmacher institute. Depo-Provera is the only contraceptive in this country that contains Prempro, the same progestin as the postmenopausal hormone therapy bill.

Other serious side effects linked to Depo-Provera include bone loss, delayed fertility, serious allergic reactions, a higher risk of premature deliveries, osteoporosis, and fractures. It also may be linked to a higher infant and neonatal death rates.

Depo-Provera Birth Control Might Raise Breast Cancer Risk, US News, April 4, 2012

Birth control shots tied to breast cancer risk, study says, NBC News, April 5, 2012

Cancer Research

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