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LOS ANGELES -- "I woke up and I couldn't breathe. The pain was unimaginable. I can't even describe it."
Christine Navarro, 22, is recalling the worst night of her life. "It felt like someone was squishing my lung, and pushing on the entire left side of my body."
And Robyn Dunn, a 31 year-old ultra-marathoner, has a similar memory. "I was having a lot of anxiety, out of breath, and I knew something was wrong, and that I should stop that race. And I've never dropped out of any race in my entire life."
Within the past year both Robyn and Christine were rushed to the hospital with life-threatening blood clots. At the time, Christine was taking the 'Yaz' birth control pill. Robyn was taking its sister birth control drug, Yazmin. Both young, athletic women blame their birth control for their brushes with death.
"One of the clots in my left lung just settled in the wrong place," Robyn recalls. "I experienced excruciating pain that night, and I was awake all night just wondering if I was going to die."
Robyn begins to cry, welling up with emotion as she recounts her story to KTLA's Victoria Recano. "I couldn't sleep the whole five nights I was in the hospital, wondering what my future was gonna be like. If I was going to be able to see my family again..." Robyn's quavering voice trails off.
It's common knowledge that all women's oral contraceptives carry a percentage risk of health complications. But attorneys for Robyn and Christine contend that Yaz and Yazmin, from Bayer, carry a greater risk.
"Yaz and Yazmin have double the risk of certain types of birth controls," attorney Dan Robinson of Robinson, Calcagnie, & Robinson tells KTLA. "It's a risk that women have not been told before today, and it's a risk that women need to know of."
His colleague at the firm, attorney Karen Karavatos, describes the kinds of health issues their clients have been experiencing: "Blood clots in the deep veins in the legs, blood clots in the arteries, pulmonary arteries, some even cerebral thrombis -- blood clots in the brain. And they're all using Yaz and Yazmin, so it becomes fairly clear that there's a causal relationship."
These attorneys claim that a recent study in the British Medical Journal found increased risk from the drug drospirenone, unique to Yaz and Yazmin. Attorney Gabe Zambrano of the Florida-based firm Johnson, Leiter, & Belsky points out to KTLA, "In 2008 this drug made Bayer about 1.2 billion dollars worldwide."
And Karavatos says that the potential danger is enormous. "Yaz and Yazmin are one of the most popular birth control pills on the market today, so we're considering tens of thousands of women that could be affected."
"There's a staggering number of women, young women that are losing their gall bladders," Zambrano says. "There's a staggering number of women suffering adverse events like pulmonary embolisms, deep vein thrombosis, that are active women, had no other health ailments, weren't on other drugs, and the only common denominator is their use of drospirenone."
KTLA News contacted representatives for Bayer, the maker of Yaz and Yazmin. In a statement Bayer told us, "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."
Bayer also pointed to "methodological shortcomings" in the British Medical Journal study, and questioned the "validity of the conclusions."
But all of that is small consolation for women like Robyn Dunn, who remains on blood thinners, and wants her story heard. "I wouldn't recommend any woman take this brand of birth control. I just don't think the risks are worth it. I would not recommend this to anybody."
Christine Navarro agrees. She hopes to send a message to other women: steer clear of Yaz. "Don't do it. What I've gone through and how I've struggled? I would hate to see anybody else go through. It's not worth it."
"These blood clots can also cause strokes, and we have cases where women have died. You shouldn't die from your birth control," Karavatos says. "Women deserve to have the truth -- they deserve to be told what the real risks are in order to make a decision as to what they're going to put in their body."
On the Web:
Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson Law Firm
South Florida Trial Lawyers
The Law Firm of Johnson, Leiter & Belsky
Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals
Christine Navarro, 22, is recalling the worst night of her life. "It felt like someone was squishing my lung, and pushing on the entire left side of my body."
And Robyn Dunn, a 31 year-old ultra-marathoner, has a similar memory. "I was having a lot of anxiety, out of breath, and I knew something was wrong, and that I should stop that race. And I've never dropped out of any race in my entire life."
Within the past year both Robyn and Christine were rushed to the hospital with life-threatening blood clots. At the time, Christine was taking the 'Yaz' birth control pill. Robyn was taking its sister birth control drug, Yazmin. Both young, athletic women blame their birth control for their brushes with death.
"One of the clots in my left lung just settled in the wrong place," Robyn recalls. "I experienced excruciating pain that night, and I was awake all night just wondering if I was going to die."
Robyn begins to cry, welling up with emotion as she recounts her story to KTLA's Victoria Recano. "I couldn't sleep the whole five nights I was in the hospital, wondering what my future was gonna be like. If I was going to be able to see my family again..." Robyn's quavering voice trails off.
It's common knowledge that all women's oral contraceptives carry a percentage risk of health complications. But attorneys for Robyn and Christine contend that Yaz and Yazmin, from Bayer, carry a greater risk.
"Yaz and Yazmin have double the risk of certain types of birth controls," attorney Dan Robinson of Robinson, Calcagnie, & Robinson tells KTLA. "It's a risk that women have not been told before today, and it's a risk that women need to know of."
His colleague at the firm, attorney Karen Karavatos, describes the kinds of health issues their clients have been experiencing: "Blood clots in the deep veins in the legs, blood clots in the arteries, pulmonary arteries, some even cerebral thrombis -- blood clots in the brain. And they're all using Yaz and Yazmin, so it becomes fairly clear that there's a causal relationship."
These attorneys claim that a recent study in the British Medical Journal found increased risk from the drug drospirenone, unique to Yaz and Yazmin. Attorney Gabe Zambrano of the Florida-based firm Johnson, Leiter, & Belsky points out to KTLA, "In 2008 this drug made Bayer about 1.2 billion dollars worldwide."
And Karavatos says that the potential danger is enormous. "Yaz and Yazmin are one of the most popular birth control pills on the market today, so we're considering tens of thousands of women that could be affected."
"There's a staggering number of women, young women that are losing their gall bladders," Zambrano says. "There's a staggering number of women suffering adverse events like pulmonary embolisms, deep vein thrombosis, that are active women, had no other health ailments, weren't on other drugs, and the only common denominator is their use of drospirenone."
KTLA News contacted representatives for Bayer, the maker of Yaz and Yazmin. In a statement Bayer told us, "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."
Bayer also pointed to "methodological shortcomings" in the British Medical Journal study, and questioned the "validity of the conclusions."
But all of that is small consolation for women like Robyn Dunn, who remains on blood thinners, and wants her story heard. "I wouldn't recommend any woman take this brand of birth control. I just don't think the risks are worth it. I would not recommend this to anybody."
Christine Navarro agrees. She hopes to send a message to other women: steer clear of Yaz. "Don't do it. What I've gone through and how I've struggled? I would hate to see anybody else go through. It's not worth it."
"These blood clots can also cause strokes, and we have cases where women have died. You shouldn't die from your birth control," Karavatos says. "Women deserve to have the truth -- they deserve to be told what the real risks are in order to make a decision as to what they're going to put in their body."
On the Web:
Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson Law Firm
South Florida Trial Lawyers
The Law Firm of Johnson, Leiter & Belsky
Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals
