Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer

Another Yaz Birth Control Victim

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:58:21 GMT

NEW YORK -- Wendy R. Fleishman of the national plaintiffs’ law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP announced that Mae Walker today filed a personal injury lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Inc., for severe and lasting injuries caused by Bayer’s birth control drug Yaz. Walker’s complaint charges that Yaz is a dangerous prescription drug sold without adequate warnings about the risk of serious injuries.

Walker, age 30, of Belpre, Ohio, works 40 hours a week at McDonald’s and is the mother of three young children. Approximately one year after she started taking Yaz, Walker was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (“DVT”), more commonly known as a blood clot, in her left leg. If left untreated, blood clots in the leg can break off and result in life-threatening conditions. Walker was hospitalized for three days, where she received anti-coagulation medication to reduce the swelling in her leg and treat the blood clot.

“Yaz has had a devastating impact on my health and family,” Walker stated. “My work requires me to stand on my feet all day. I still experience leg swelling and cannot lift heavy items. I have to be extremely careful not to ever cut myself due to the blood-thinning medication I am taking, which I have been told I must likely take the rest of my life.”

The complaint charges that Walker would never have developed DVT, been hospitalized, or forced to undergo numerous medical tests and procedures, had Bayer properly warned patients of the dangers of using Yaz.

“The FDA’s adverse event database for Yaz and Yasmin reveal a very high number of serious adverse events associated with these drugs, including strokes, heart attacks, blood clot formation, gallbladder and kidney disease, and sometimes death,” commented attorney Fleishman. “Bayer failed to warn doctors and consumers that Yaz and Yasmin are actually more dangerous than previous generations of oral contraception pills.”

The complaint was filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, where Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is located.

Click here for the rest of the article.

**Also, anyone who has been adversely affected due to taking these prescription drugs, like Yasmin, Yaz or Ocella, should get in touch with Helen Zukin. Ms. Zukin recently retained a client, a young woman, who unfortunately suffered from a stroke, after only taking Ocella (generic version of Yaz) for a month.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Maclaren Stroller Defect Went Unfixed for Five Years

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:15:53 GMT

From the New York Post:

Maclaren knew for at least five years that its strollers could lop off a child's finger, but did nothing about the dangerous defect until federal regulators all but forced it to, The Post has learned.

This week, the company agreed to a "voluntary recall" of all its models sold as far back as 1999, conceding that the fingers of 12 children were severed by the stroller's hinges when they were opened or closed.

But since Maclaren failed to notify the Consumer Products Safety Commission when it first became aware of even a "potential danger," the British-based company could still face a fine of $1 million or more, sources said.

Companies are required by federal law to "report to CPSC immediately on learning of a problem with a product that makes it a substantial hazard or poses a potential hazard," commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said.

The company has known the stroller hinges could become finger guillotines since at least July 12, 2004, when 23-month-old Connecticut toddler Carlos DeWinter lost his right pinky, according to court papers obtained by The Post.

His mother, Jane DeWinter, was shopping for a Maclaren Triumph stroller at a Right Start shop near her Greenwich home, and she was testing the one-handed folding and unfolding mechanism.

As she was about to lock the stroller into the open position, Carlos put his finger on the hinge, and he suffered a "traumatic amputation," the court papers said.

Despite two surgeries, the pinky could not be reattached.

Maclaren and Right Start argued that the mother's "own negligence" was to blame, the suit says.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Bayer Follows Google's Lead

Paul Kiesel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:59:37 GMT

Bayer's Yaz is trying out a paid search format similar to that proposed by Google for products carrying black-box warnings.

The Yaz-branded sponsored link appears in a yellow-highlighted box atop Google searches on terms including “Yaz,” “the pill” and “birth control.” It features a headline linking to the product site, a line of text advising viewers to “Read important product info here,” and a bottom line reading “Click to see full safety and prescribing information, including boxed warning,” followed by a “fixed” link to physician labeling.

Yaz carries a boxed warning of sharply increased cardiovascular risks for users who smoke, particularly those over the age of 35. Boxed warnings denote particularly serious risks and prescription drug brands carrying boxed warnings are not allowed to run so-called reminder ads giving a brand name but not its indication.

Bayer was among the 14 recipients of untitled letters for violative sponsored links issued by FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications in April. Drug companies had been operating under the so-called “One click rule,” the assumption that as long as full-risk information was a click away, they could run space-limited sponsored links giving only a name and abbreviated indication [. . .]

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

More Bayer Birth Control Dangers

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:57:55 GMT

From Fox News:

Within the past year both Christine Navarro and Robyn Dunn were rushed to the hospital with life threatening blood clots. At the time Christine was taking the Yaz birth control pill and Robyn was taking its sister birth control drug Yasmin.

Both of these women were young and athletic and blame birth control for their brushes with death.

It's common knowledge that all women's oral contraceptives carry a percentage risk of health complications. But attorney's who've filed lawsuits on behalf of Robyn and Christine contend that Yaz and Yasmin from Bayer carry a greater risk.

These attorneys claim that recent study in the British Medical Journal found increased risk from the drug drospirenone unique to Yaz and Yasmin.

Representatives for Bayer, the maker of Yaz and Yasmin responded to the concerns, saying quote: "Patient safety is Bayer's top priority. Bayer's oral contraceptives have been and continue to be extensively studied and tested worldwide. Bayer reaffirms and stands behind the safety of its drospirenone containing oral contraceptives."

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Bishops and Thugs: How the Catholic Church is Shaping Health Care Legislation

Paul Kiesel — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:07:42 GMT

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Catholic bishops have emerged as a formidable force in the health care overhaul fight, using their clout with millions of Catholics and working behind the scenes in Congress to get strong abortion restrictions into the House bill.

They don't spend a dime on what is legally defined as lobbying, but lawmakers and insiders recognize that the bishops' voices matter — and they move votes. Representatives for the bishops were in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Capitol suite negotiating with top officials last Friday evening as they reached final terms of the agreement. Earlier in the day, Pelosi, a Catholic and an abortion rights supporter, had been on the phone to Rome with Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Washington's former archbishop, on the subject.

It wasn't the first time a high-ranking Catholic had weighed in with a key player on writing strict abortion curbs into the health measure. Boston's Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley personally appealed to President Barack Obama about it near the church altar at the early September funeral for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Bishops quietly called their congressmen and senators to weigh in.

"The Catholic Church used their power — their clout, if you will — to influence this issue. They had to. It's a basic teaching of the religion," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., a leading abortion foe and architect of the health measure's restrictions.

Bringing in the bishops' staff
It was Stupak who told Pelosi last Friday that if she wanted a deal on the health bill, she'd be well advised to invite the bishops' staff, who were already in his office, to her table. "I said, 'Well, they're here, and they're one of the key groups you want to have on your side, so why don't we just bring them in and work this out," Stupak said.

Pelosi did, and the result was a final measure that — much to the outrage of abortion rights supporters — bars a new government-run insurance plan from covering abortions, except in cases or rape, incest or the life of the mother being in danger, and prohibits any health plan that receives federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace from offering abortion coverage. If women wanted to purchase abortion coverage through such plans, they'd have to buy it separately, as a so-called rider on their insurance policies.

The outcome has put Obama and Democratic leaders — already struggling for consensus on the complex and politically tricky health measure — in a tough spot. Democratic abortion foes in the Senate vow they won't support health legislation that omits the strict restrictions approved by the House, while abortion rights champions say they can't possibly vote for a bill that contains them.

Obama suggested Monday that he wants to strike a balance that doesn't allow backdoor federal funding of abortions but preserves women's insurance choices. For now, however, no such middle ground has been identified, and the bishops have served their notice that they will be a player — perhaps the dominant one — in the final outcome.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

LAT: Headed to the Emergency Room? Bring a book...

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:13:07 GMT

From the Los Angeles Times:

The stereotype of hospital emergency rooms crowded with patients waiting endlessly to be seen by a doctor is true, according to a new study in Tuesday's edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. The conventional wisdom that throngs of low-income, uninsured people who use the ER as a substitute for primary care visits are to blame, however, is wrong.

First, a few statistics:

In 1997, the median wait time for ER patients was 22 minutes. By 2006, it was 33 minutes.
Per capita use of ERs was 40.5 visits per 100 people in 2006, up from 34.2 visits per 100 people a decade earlier.
The proportion of ER patients deemed to be suffering from a real medical emergency fell from 26.9% in 1997 to 18.3% in 2007.
The percentage of ER patients who lacked health insurance remained between 16% and 17% between 1997 and 2006.

These and other statistics were gleaned from data on 151,999 patient visits to emergency departments recorded in the National Hospital Ambulatory and Medical Care Survey. The survey includes four triage categories – emergent (patient should be seen within 14 minutes), urgent (15-60 minutes), semiurgent (61 minutes to two hours) and nonurgent (anywhere from two to 24 hours).

Though wait times got longer for everyone, the problem was worst for emergent patients – their median wait times increased by 4.6% per year, the study found. Waits for urgent patients grew 2.8% per year for urgent patients, 3.9% per year for semiurgent patients, and 1.6% for nonurgent patients.

Put another way, only 56.6% of emergent patients saw a doctor within the time recommended by triage staff, compared to 100% of nonurgent patients. Overall, the proportion of patients who got to a doctor within the “triage target time” fell from 80% in 2000 to 75.9% in 2006, the study found.

One theory to account for increased ER wait times is that more people who can’t afford to go to a regular doctor wind up coming to the ER instead, where federal law guarantees they’ll be treated regardless of ability to pay. The survey data corroborated this to an extent, finding that 17% of uninsured patients in the ER were classified as nonurgent, compared to only 13.9% of people who had private insurance. That works out to about 567,000 extra visits each year.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Fearing a Flu Vaccine?

Paul Kiesel — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:37:49 GMT

From The New York Times:

When I tell nonmedical friends that our clinic is vaccinating children against the H1N1 flu virus, here is what they say.

With about half, it is something like: “Oh, my God, our doctor doesn’t have it! Can you get me a dose?” And with the other half, it is something like, “Oh, my God, that brand-new vaccine — do you really think it’s safe?”

There is a peculiar duality in the collective cultural mind just now, a kind of pandemic doublethink. Other doctors I know are all eagerly having their own children immunized. Many are answering frantic calls from people desperate for the vaccine. But at the same time, we are all coming up against parents who are determined to refuse that same vaccine.

Wondering what history might have to say about this incongruous state of affairs, I called David M. Oshinsky, a professor of history at the University of Texas who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Polio: An American Story” (Oxford, 2005). Dr. Oshinsky compared the current vaccination campaign with two previous situations.

In 1947, a man newly arrived in New York City from Mexico died of smallpox. The authorities “lined up the entire city” and vaccinated everyone, even those who had already been vaccinated, Dr. Oshinsky said. “The entire city was revaccinated,” he added, “and there was no real resistance. People had a sense of risk versus reward and listened to public health officials.”

Then there were the polio vaccine trials of 1954, in which parents volunteered more than a million children to receive either an experimental vaccine or a placebo. And while they trusted the medical profession much more than parents do now, there was another factor, Dr. Oshinsky said: “They also had lived through virulent epidemics. That to me is probably the biggest issue of all. You’re dealing with parents who’ve never seen a smallpox epidemic, a polio epidemic.”

Few doctors now practicing have ever seen a single case of smallpox, much less an epidemic (thanks to vaccination). But when pediatricians look at today’s strain of H1N1, we tend to be good and scared.

Serious cases of this flu are relatively rare but far from unheard of; more than 100 children have died of H1N1. The deaths seem to occur disproportionately in children and pregnant women.

So we give the H1N1 vaccine to children whose parents are almost tearfully afraid of the virus, and we try to win over those parents who are just as tearfully afraid of the vaccine. To them, we explain over and over that in fact this is not a brand-new vaccine — it is made with the same techniques as the seasonal influenza vaccine. Yes, it has been tested. Yes, it’s safe. Yes, it’s effective.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Another Lawsuit Filed Against the Maker of "Yaz" Birth Control

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:19:40 GMT

From ChicagoNow:

A woman is suing the maker of Yaz birth control after the contraceptive allegedly caused her to develop gall stones.

Melissa Johnson is suing Bayer, the maker of the prescription birth control, because she says it caused her to develop gall stones necessitating the removal of her gall bladder.

According to the complaint, Yaz contains drospirenone, a type of progestin not contained in any other birth control and of which "there is insufficient data to support its safe use." The complaint states that, since Yaz first appeared in the U.S., "hundreds of reports of injury and death" have been submitted to the FDA.

The lawsuit also points out the maker's "over-promotion" of Yaz that led to the FDA requiring it to run new TV ads correcting some of the misleading information.

Click here to view the complaint.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Entertainer Impaled by Gate Operated by Indian Wells, Widow Sues City

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:30:46 GMT

From The Desert Sun:

A trial date for a case involving the death of a local entertainer is expected to be set by the end of the year, officials said.

Victor Leon, 63, of Palm Desert died Jan. 12 after he was impaled by a gate that pierced his car as he was driving through Indian Wells.

Leon was executive producer of Musical Chairs, a local tribute concert series featuring music by great American songwriters.

The incident occurred at the corner of Miles Avenue and Highway 111, near the construction site for the Indian Wells Crossing project.

Leon's wife, Elizabeth Leon, filed a lawsuit June 15 against the city of Indian Wells, the Coachella Valley Water District and two Illinois-based companies — Miles Lodge LLC and Jerson Investments LLC, demanding a jury trial.

A court hearing for the case was scheduled Oct. 7, but was canceled.

The next hearing date is set for Dec. 14, where it is expected that the judge will set the trial date, said Paul R. Kiesel, the Los Angeles-based attorney representing Elizabeth Leon.

“The investigation is ongoing to determine why this tragedy happened,” Kiesel said.

Miles Lodge LLC and Jerson Investments LLC are listed as owners of the property where the gate was, Kiesel said Friday.

Indian Wells and CVWD, however, had a legal easement that allowed employees to have access to and control of the area as well, he added.

According to court documents, the listed defendants “negligently designed, installed, maintained, controlled and operated the gate” that subsequently swung out into Miles Avenue, impaling Victor Leon.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Birth Control Pills Almost Double the Risk of Stroke

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:36:27 GMT

From The Times of India:

According to a review article in MedLink Neurology by three Loyola University Health System neurologists, women who take birth control pills and also smoke, have high blood pressure or have a history of migraine headaches, significantly increase their risk of stroke.

The review found there were about 4.4 ischemic strokes for every 100,000 women of childbearing age, but birth control pills increase the risk of stroke 1.9 times, to 8.5 strokes per 100,000 women.

"When prescribing oral contraceptives, doctors should balance the risks and benefits for each individual patient," said senior author Dr. Jose Biller.

"For a healthy young woman without any other stroke risk factors, the benefits of birth control pills probably outweigh the risks. But if a woman has other stroke risk factors, she should be discouraged from using oral contraceptives,” the expert added.

How oral contraceptives might cause strokes is not completely understood. But two possible mechanisms are the increased risks of blood clots and high blood pressure associated with oral contraceptives, authors wrote.

**Also, anyone who has been adversely affected due to taking these prescription drugs, like Yasmin, Yaz or Ocella, should get in touch with Helen Zukin. Ms. Zukin recently retained a client, a young woman, who unfortunately suffered from a stroke, after only taking Ocella (generic version of Yaz) for a month.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel