Have any of you seen Wicked?

It’s a musical that is currently making a successful run on Broadway up in New York. It essentially tells the back story of the various witches who appear in the Wizard of Oz. And that means all of them. The good witches, as well as the various wicked witches who occupy all four points of the compass.

Broadway is the absolute pinnacle of American theater. If you have earned a spot in a Broadway show, you can say that you have made it as an actor. Even if your part is only that of an understudy, you can certainly feel proud of yourself for making it to the upper echelon of your profession.

Brenda Hamilton did exactly that. This 29 year old actress has not only landed a role as an understudy for this popular show, but has done so after recovering from something that could have just as easily ended her life, much less her career. Ms. Hamilton had been taking a popular birth control pill called Yasmin for around two years when she suffered a stroke at the practically unheard of age of 27.

Yasmin is a birth control pill that is part of Bayer’s line of oral contraceptives. Yasmin was the first of the line to be released, followed by Yaz, and a relatively recent  generic  version called Ocella was approved for sale and use.

What makes Yasmin, Yaz and Ocella different from other birth control pills on the market is that all three of these pills contain an ingredient called drospirenone, which is a synthetic variation of progestin. When this pill was first tested, the reports out of the lab indicated that by using drospirenone, the pills had the potential to “reduce body weight, blood pressure” and “has positive effects on weight and lipid levels.” In other words, not only could it keep you from getting pregnant, but it could also help you lose weight. A few years later, more researchers concluded thatYasmin could help treat and reduce moderate cases of acne. In short, there is much for women to like about this new ingredient.

But by 2003, the downside of this new ingredient began to make itself perfectly clear, as mentioned in a paper by in the British Medical Journal:

A 17 year old woman suddenly collapsed and died after taking the contraceptive for six months. Autopsy showed that she had had a massive pulmonary embolism. No obvious risk factors forthromboembolism, such as smoking, a period of long immobilisation, air flights, or concomitant medication, were evident. Because she died suddenly no blood sample was taken. Blood taken from her parents did not test positive for any of the known risk factors: concentrations of protein C and antithrombin III were normal. The activated partial thromboplastin time and partial thromboplastin time were normal, and the existence of factor V Leiden mutation was excluded.

A 28 year old woman changed her oral contraceptive from ethinylestradiol with desogestrel (Marvelon) to ethinylestradiol with drospirenone. Four months later she had thrombosis in one leg and was treated with acenocoumarol. Risk factors or concomitant drugs were unknown.

Another patient, a 45 year old woman, had deep vein thrombosis in one leg after taking ethinylestradiol with drospirenone for two months, as did a 50 year old woman who took the contraceptive for three months. A 35 year old woman had pulmonary thrombosis 17 days after she started taking the contraceptive. She had given birth four months earlier.

As is often the case, things progress on the streets in a much faster fashion than they do in the lab. The total of Yasmin and Yaz users who were ending up dead was much higher than the four women that were mentioned in the initial BMJ study. Conservative estimates give us a baseline of fifty deaths.

And this isn’t counting the women who were hurt badly, but didn’t die. There have certainly been cases of strokes occurring in otherwise healthy women (just like Ms. Hamilton,) but there have also been cases of heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, gall bladder disease and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). What the folks at Bayer didn’t bother to mention was that it appears that drospirenone causes blood clotting in the large veins of the legs. These clots then break apart and begin to travel through the bloodstream, where they can cause blockages of blood flow in the heart, lungs or brain. Ms. Hamilton is a case in point.

Ms. Hamilton is fortunate in that she was able to recover from her stroke and continue with her career. Others have not been so lucky.

Greenberg and Bederman is currently offering legal assistance to women in Washington, D.C, Maryland and Virginia who have suffered from injuries and hospitalization due to the use of Yasmin, Yaz and Ocella.  If you or a loved one has been hurt due to Bayer’s line of birth control pills, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.