2011 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for those affected by the birth control brands Yaz and Yasmin, brands produced by the Bayer Corporation. The side effects of these drugs can be extremely severe, and lawsuits filed by women who have suffered from them have been piling up, leading to multidistrict litigation that groups trials together based on complaint.
The first of these trials, one whose plaintiff is the victims of Yaz pulmonary embolism from the pill, is set to take place in September 2011, kicking off several more bellwether trials for gallbladder disease and deep vein thrombosis, both of which will take place in 2012 but whose discovery period will conclude in September and November of 2011 respectively.
Some of the complaints filed by women who had been taking the medication include gallbladder disease, stroke, blood clot, and pulmonary embolism – all of which can be severely debilitating, and in some cases even fatal. The multidistrict form of litigation consolidates victims into groups based on complaint, streamlining pretrial research. These individual trials based on side effect will go through the Southern District of Illinois and be presided over by Judge Herndon.
24 “test trials” have been chosen from a pool of all of the cases, eight of which involve pulmonary embolism as a complaint. These trials will allow plaintiffs to get a feel for the kind of compensation they will receive as well as the trial process itself.
All of the cases will deal with Yaz, Ocella, and Yasmin, birth control pills that contain the hormone drospirenone, a controversial ingredient that is suspected to be the culprit for the more serious side effects women are experiencing while taking the drug. The Bayer Corporation is likely to see many more Yasmin lawsuits being filed in 2011, increasing the already thousands of lawsuits against them.
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