Quoted from http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2011/07/lawsuits_mounting_over_alleged.html
Lawsuits mounting over alleged health risks of Bayer's Yaz contraceptive
Published: Monday, July 11, 2011, 2:35 PM Updated: Monday, July 11, 2011, 2:55 PM
By Susan Todd/The Star-Ledger
Michelle Pfleger, a teenager from Hackettstown, was familiar enough with the birth control pill Yaz to ask for it when she visited her doctor before heading off to college.
She had seen the advertisements on television about how the drug could help clear up mild acne, relieve premenstrual irritability and, if she needed it, could prevent her from getting pregnant.
“Some of her friends were on it,” her mother, Joan Cummins, said recently, “and she thought it was a good one.”
But in May, Cummins filed a lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare, the drug company that sells Yaz, alleging that the birth control pill caused her 18-year-old daughter’s death nearly a year ago. Pfleger died after a blood clot lodged in her lung, causing her to go into cardiac arrest as she made her way to class at Elon University in North Carolina.
In one of the latest court battles pitting consumers against a giant drugmaker, Cummins and thousands of others are alleging Bayer did not provide adequate warnings about the health risks associated with Yaz, and they are blaming the drug for causing blood clots, heart attacks, strokes and, in some cases, sudden deaths.
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