According to a recent study conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Bayer Pharmaceutical’s widely-used birth control pills, Yaz and Yasmin, are 75 percent more likely to cause blood clots in women than older-generation pills.
The study, which was recently released in an FDA drug safety report, looked at approximately 800,000 women between the years 2001 and 2007. Researchers from the FDA, Kaiser Permanente, Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington ultimately found that overall, drospirenone-containing birth control pills increased the risk of blood clots, otherwise known as venous thromboembolic events (VTE), by 75 percent over pills containing progestin levonorgestrel.
The study’s findings back several claims raised by thousands of women who have filed Yaz-related lawsuits, all of whom experienced serious blood clots as a result of using drospirenone-containing birth control pills like Yaz, Yasmin, Beyaz, Gianvi, Loryna, Safyral, Syeda Zarah and/or Ocella.
The FDA will present the new data at a December 8th meeting of the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee.
