Quoted from http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_658096.html
YAZ, Yasmin suits filed locally against Bayer
By Thomas Olson, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, December 17, 2009Bayer Corp. was named in at least a half-dozen federal lawsuits filed this week in Pittsburgh alleging the company's birth control products called YAZ and Yasmin are unsafe and potentially deadly.
The complaints are among some 150 nationally so far that target the Robinson-based company over its marketing of the contraceptives, Bayer said.
Each of the six most recent civil complaints seek a total of $150,000 in punitive and compensatory damages. None of the plaintiffs are from the Pittsburgh area.
One such lawsuit was filed by a Columbia, Md., woman, who began taking Yasmin in January 2007 and suffered "serious and life-threatening side-effects" as a result, the complaint alleges.
Those side effects include pneumonia and pulmonary embolism, the blockage of an artery in the lung by a substance that traveled through the bloodstream.
Bayer is aware of the lawsuits and will "defend itself vigorously," said spokesman Bryan Iams.
"The complaints we have reviewed so far pertain to side effects that are warned about in the labeling of all contraceptives, including ours," said Iams.
Yasmin was approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration in 2001. The agency in 2006 approved a successor drug, YAZ, which is almost identical and likewise marketed by Bayer.