By paNOW

Regina lawyer plans class action suit as birth control Yaz linked to deaths

Jun 12, 2013 | 6:53 AM

Yaz or Yazmin birth control pills are suspected to be linked to the deaths of 23 women in Canada and now their families are looking for answers.

One class-action lawsuit is already underway in Ontario representing hundreds of women who have faced health problems after taking the pill. Regina-based lawyer Tony Merchant is in the process of launching a second class action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company Bayer for women outside Ontario.

“Contacting Merchant law group have been eight families where their daughter died unfortunately usually very young,” Merchant said. “The youngest person to die on Yaz and Yasmin was 14, we have a number of people in their teens or 20s.”

He says 200 people in Saskatchewan have already come forward with other health problems and they expect to see many more.

“Typical problems of gall bladder being removed, high blood pressure that results in medicine for life, blood thinners being necessary for life, stroke,” Merchant listed.

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Health Canada issued a warning in 2011 about these particular brands. They contain a different ingredient that increases blood clot risks by up to three times compared to other pills. According to the Health Canada warning one in 100,000 women on regular birth control are at increased risk of blood clots, but the risk goes up on Yas or Yasmin to up to three women in 100,000.

In conversations with these women and their families, Merchant says they believed the Yaz and Yasmin brand pills were just as safe as any other form of birth control.

The Merchant Law Group is still in the process of certifying the lawsuit with hundreds of claimants in Saskatchewan and Alberta and they expect to go to court by next fall.

Edited by CJME’s Adriana Christianson with files from Canadian Press

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