25,000 Cases Could Be Included in Yaz Contraceptive Pretrial Session
By Jim Greene
Published on January 21, 2010
As many as 25,000 personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits over the Bayer contraceptives Yaz® and Yasmin® may eventually be included in a consolidation of pretrial proceedings to an Illinois federal court. The process could take as long as two years, but may save many more years of court time.
Chief Judge David Herndon is supervising the consolidation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, in East St. Louis. When the process began last October, only about 40 to 50 potential cases had been identified.
Bayer Accused of Insufficient Product Warnings
Defendant Bayer Corporation is accused of not adequately warning patients that Yaz® and Yasmin® contraceptive pills might have dangerous side effects, such as strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism, thrombosis, cardiac arrhythmia, gallbladder disease, kidney failure and sudden death.
A central issue in the litigation is the manner in which Bayer originally promoted Yaz®. Early advertising suggested that all products in its class offer similar protection against conception, but that an ingredient unique to Yaz® helped the product provide better relief of premenstrual symptoms.
Plaintiffs say the unique ingredient, dropspirenone, creates a greater risk of dangerous side effects than in other contraceptives, and that Bayer's claim of premenstrual relief was exaggerated, inducing women to take extra risks with no benefit.
Consolidation Intended to Speed Up Litigation
Consolidation of similar cases streamlines pretrial proceedings by sharing discoveries among the legal teams and avoiding conflicting rulings that can result from hearings conducted in multiple jurisdictions. The supervising judge may also select a few representative cases to be tried first, in hopes that they will provide guidelines for speeding up subsequent trials, or lead to out-of-court settlements.
If you took Bayer's Yaz® or Yasmin® contraceptive pills and suffered stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism, thrombosis, cardiac arrhythmia, gallbladder disease, kidney failure or other related medical problems, you should enlist the aid of an experienced defective products/personal injury attorney. Decisions are being made that could affect your future. Your attorney will monitor the situation and let you know if you are eligible for financial compensation to help you deal with your issues.
Keyword Tags: