January 17, 2012
It has been discovered that several members of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee that backed the drospirenone-based birth control pills, Yaz and Yasmin, had ties to the drugs manufacturer, Bayer AG. The news was released in an article by Washington Monthly and said that four of the panel members that voted in favor of the drug at a December 8th meeting also had received money from Bayer in the past.
It was uncovered in the article that the panels chairwoman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, had received money from Bayer for work she did in 2009 involving clinical trials of drugs containing drospirenone.
Also, three other panel members had received research funding in the thousands of dollars from the company.
Although the monetary exchanges were disclosed to the FDA and determined to have no influence over the panel members, it was determined that one panel member did present a conflict of interest. The panel member was also an author of a book that told readers to stay away from drospirenone-containing medications because of the increased risks of blood clots and deep vein thrombosis.
The Texas Yaz® drug injury lawyers with Ferrer Poirot Feller Daniel see first-hand, on an almost daily basis, the dangers that drugs like these can present to patients. Contact us today if you have suffered from thrombosis, blood clots, heart attacks, or strokes while taking a drospirenone-containing medication.