Class action lawsuit over birth control patch
Story By: Bea Karnes
Source: NBC
The birth control patch gives millions of women the freedom of not taking a pill every day. But one woman believes that convenience caused her a potentially life-threatening condition, and now she's part of a class action lawsuit.
Ronda Sloan, of Oakley, California says up until recently she had very few health problems. "It started on a Sunday, I was at Great America and I was having this shortness of breath and this pain in my chest. By Friday, he had me take a CT scan, and that's when they found the blood clot in my lung," Sloan said. Sloan believes the birth control patch Ortho Evra caused that blood clot. "I didn't have any issues taking the pill, not getting sick or anything like that, and with the patch, it only took me three months to make me sick," Sloan said.
She's one of thousands of American women suing Johnson and Johnson, the makers of Ortho Evra. "They were given the patch. They were given the patch for convenience sake, and they weren't told that it actually increases their risk for developing blood clots," attorney Shawn Khorammi said.
The company says risks for Ortho Evra are spelled out on the label and that patients should make sure to read it. That label was recently updated after a new study found some women are twice as likely to develop blood clots from the patch rather than the pill.
"Your risk is actually elevated compared to the pill. Now that's a big price to pay -- to suffer a stroke, to suffer a pulmonary embolism, to have the DVT -- simply for convenience," Khorrami said.
"I think the most important thing is the absolute risk is still incredibly tiny," Obstetrician and gynecologist Ricki Pollycove said. Those tiny risks are worth taking for the vast majority of women, according to Dr. Pollycove. "I've never taken a patient off of Ortho Evra. I've had one patient in 27 years of practice who had a pulmonary embolism on a birth control pill," Pollycove said.
For Ronda Sloan, however, she believes that risk almost cost her life. Still, she doesn't blame the doctor who prescribed her the patch. She holds Johnson and Johnson responsible.
