In the “Medication Update” section of a 2011 edition of the medical journal The Nurse Practitioner, a warning regarding the use of drospirenone-containing oral contraceptives is made. Oral contraceptives containing drospirenone are YAZ®, Beyaz®, Safyal®, and Yazmin®.
The warning reads as follows:
“The FDA notified healthcare providers and patients that two newly published studies evaluating the risk of [blood clot development] in women who use oral contraceptives (OCs) containing the progestin drospirenone found a greater risk of [blood clot] associated with drospirenone-containing OCs compared with OCs that contain levonorgestrel.”[1]
That increased risk of developing a blood clot was stated to be “two or three times greater … in women taking drospirenone-containing OCs than was seen among women taking levonorgestrel-containing OCs.”[2]
The development of a blood clot can be a very serious medical event. If a blood clot becomes lodged in the brain, one can have a stroke, and if a blood clot becomes lodged in the heart, one may have a heart attack.
A lawyer may cite this article in a Yaz lawsuit to demonstrate that the medical community has been aware of the increased risk of adverse health effects posed to users of oral contraceptives such as YAZ®, and that users of this and other such drugs are placed at higher risk without any potential higher reward: drospirenone-containing oral contraceptives are no more effective than those that do not contain drospirenone.
[1] “Medication Update” The Nurse Practitioner Vol. 36, No. 8. © 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; p. 56
[2] Ibid
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