Posted on 06/04/2011 12:18:15 PM PDT by GonzoII
FDA announces review of birth control pills over serious blood clot risks
by Peter J. Smith
Wed Jun 01 5:32 PM EST
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Federal drug regulators are now reviewing studies that say some modern birth control pills may pose a serious risk of clots to women who take them.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday that they were conducting a safety review of birth control products containing drospirenone, a synthetic female sex hormone or progestin.
German pharmaceutical maker Bayer’s oral contraceptives Yaz, Yasmine, Safyral, Beyaz, and their generics are part of a chemical family of contraceptives containing drospirenone, and are among the oral contraceptives whose effects the FDA intends to review.
Bayer faces 7000 Yaz-related lawsuits from women who say the drug-manufacturer misrepresented the dangers associated with using the birth control pills – side effects including stroke, cardiac arrest, blood clots, and gallbladder problems.
Bayer has marketed heavily its Yaz oral contraceptive products to teenagers and young adult women, saying its products were not just for preventing pregnancy, but also could treat PMS symptoms and acne.
One wrongful death lawsuit involves an 18-year-old New Jersey college student, Michelle Pfleger, who died of cardiac arrest after taking Yaz for acne treatment. A blood clot had lodged in her lungs resulting in her sudden death on her way to classes on September 24, 2010. Her mother Joan Cummins filed suit against Bayer on May 10.
The FDA noted in its public announcement that “[a]ll birth control pills pose a risk of blood clots,” but two studies posed in the British Medical Journal contended that the contraceptives containing drospirenone posed two to three times a greater risk than other contraceptives containing the progestin levonorgestrel.
The FDA said it was going to conduct a study of 800,000 women in order to resolve the conclusions of conflicting studies on drospirenone-containing contraceptives. The results of the study are due sometime in the summer.
Copyright © 2010 LifeSiteNews.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thanks. I sent this on to several friends who think I’m nuts for constantly referring to The Pill as poison. One of them spent the better part of March in critical condition from a pulomamey embolism that her dr said was caused by the POS pill. Sadly, these women are too chicken to stand up to their boyfriends, who want them polluting their bodies with this crap for the sake of convenience.
No problem. Yeah, this info needs to get out there.
Ping.
The sneaky factor may also be Factor V Leiden, a genetic condition that involves Protein S and C, two clotting factors. I have it, my dad and youngest sister also have it. It was discovered when I had a blood clot about ten years ago.
It’s an inconvenient little genetic bugger. I can’t take birth control pills or *ANY* treatment that involves estrogen or anything that even mimics estrogen. It’s making perimenopause difficult. I’m also on an aspirin a day and know that if I ever need to take an extended flight I have to get an injection of blood thinner before I go.
It’s mostly in WASPs, so if your family has a history of clotting it may not hurt to have it checked.
My wife and I can remember being called more than once when my middle daughter was vomiting and sobbing in a fetal position on the floor of her high school bathroom. Her cramps would cause her to double over and hit the floor in sobs; her headaches were like a migrane. She was incapacitated for two days a month and in tears for another day or more.
This is a championship gymnast who (unknowingly to us) once won vault, floor, and best-all-around in a major metropolitan county high school championship with a broken wrist, and once competed at a Level Nine meet with a broken ankle - and never complained.
She was first placed on birth control pills, both Yaz and Beyaz among them, in high school by an OB/GYN in my Sunday School class. It's given my daughter back 36 days or more out of the year. She's now a college graduate, still taking the stuff, and knowing her history and morals, probably still a virgin.
So it's not always polluting a body for the sake of a boyfriend's convenience.
Yes I experienced the same with debilitating cramps until I had a child. My OB / GYN put me on the Pill as well. I spent almost 10 years on that garbage. Truthfully, I’d rather puke my guts up & be in pain than put up with the side effects of these insidiously evil pills. That being said, the majority of women are not taking them for medical purposes.
Thanks GonzoII.
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