A recent study indicates that the Ortho Evra Birth Control Patch triples a patient’s risk of developing serious and life threatening blood clots. Ortho McNeil, the maker of this birth control patch, has been accused of failing to warn consumers about these serious potential side effects.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR PERSONS THAT DEVELOPED THE FOLLOWING WHILE ON THE PATCH:

Blood Clots

Heart Attacks

Strokes

Pulmonary Embolism

Death

Some more information:

The Ortho Evra birth control patch has become a popular birth control option for American women after receiving FDA approval in November 2001. Containing a combination of estrogen and progesterone that is slowly absorbed when applied to the skin, the patch allows the combined hormones to prevent ovulation and pregnancy. In less than three years on the market, Ortho Evra was tried by more than five million women in the United States, which made the July 2005 Associated Press report that a dozen deaths during 2004 could be linked to the device's use so concerning.

According to the AP, about a dozen women, most of them in their late teens and early 20's, died from blood clots in 2004 that were using the Ortho Evra patch. The AP filed a Freedom of Information Act to request to obtain reports of adverse events from the FDA, which they said revealed the risk of death with the patch could be about three times greater than with the pill. Ortho Evra's maker, Ortho-McNeil, refuted the AP's claims, saying the report exaggerated the risk by using too low a number of patch users in 2004.

The AP said there were 12 clot-related deaths among the approximately 800,000 Ortho Evra users in 2004, but Ortho-McNeil said industry data showed two million women used Ortho Evra in 2004. While the AP's review did not establish a casual link between the deaths and the patch, Amy Allina of the Washington-based National Women's Health Collective sent a letter to the FDA supporting the idea that the data provides a strong argument for a requirement by the FDA that the manufacturer of any new drug that is know to have serious side effects conduct a substantial post release study of its safety.

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