Blood clots from birth control are not new. But in patch form it appears you are getting more hormones and, now they find, more blood clots. I would think that lawyers looking into these cases would be wise to focus on the dosage problems rather the hormones themselves. Hormone-related litigation has so far proved difficult.
More than 4 million women have used the patch since it went on sale in 2002. Ortho Evra lawyers have filed several lawsuits on behalf of families of women who died or suffered blood clots while using the patch, and these attorneys said more are planned.
Documents released to attorneys as a result of Ortho Evra litigation show Ortho McNeil has been analyzing the FDA’s death and injury reports, creating its own charts that document a higher rate of blood clots and deaths in association with the patch than with the pill.
In addition, an internal Ortho McNeil memo shows that the company refused, in 2003, to fund a study comparing its Ortho Evra patch to its Ortho-Cyclen pill because of concerns there was “too high a chance that study may not produce a positive result for Evra” and there was a “risk that Ortho Evra may be the same or worse than Ortho-Cyclen.”
Lawyers, I suggest, should be intrigued by these findings but proceed cautiously before filing a bunch of lawsuits.
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