- LONDON (Reuters) - Women
who took the latest oral contraceptives have suffered disastrous and deadly
health problems because drug companies failed to warn them about the pills'
side effects, their lawyer said on Monday.
-
- In what is believed to be the first big class action
of its kind, a lawyer acting for more than 100 women suing three big drug
companies told Britain's High Court that seven had died and others suffered
injuries ranging from blood clots to strokes.
-
- "Some are moderately injured, but several of the
victims have disastrous injuries which will permanently incapacitate them
throughout their lives," counsel Lord Brennan told the court.
-
- The women are seeking damages from American Home Products
subsidiary Wyeth, Organon Laboratories, part of Dutch chemicals group Akzo
Nobel and Germany's Schering claiming the firms failed to protect them
from the pills' harmful side effects.
-
- Earlier on Monday, Wyeth said that using its latest oral
contraceptive carried a higher risk of developing potentially dangerous
blood clots but that the risk was small and well known and was included
in information about the pills.
-
- "There is known to be an increased risk and it is
the level of the risk that people need to understand is very low. It has
been known there is a small increased risk for a number of years,"
a spokeswoman said.
-
- Brennan argued that there had been no warnings to doctors
or users about the increased risks of the pills introduced in the
1980s.
-
- THIRD-GENERATION PILLS
-
- The case centres on the so-called
"third-generation"
contraceptive pills Femodene, Minulet, Marvelon and Mercilon. The women
involved range in age from the teens to the 30s.
-
- Lawyers representing them in the case, which is expected
to last about five months, believe the drug companies could face millions
of pounds (dollars) in compensation claims.
-
- "Oral contraceptives have been in use since the
early 1960s and throughout their history they have been associated with
a risk of thrombosis (clotting)," said Brennan.
-
- He added that the third-generation products carried an
increased risk over the earlier pills which the women should have been
warned about.
-
- "There was no such warning and the claimants
suffered,"
he told the court.
-
- Describing the case as complex, Brennan said the drug
companies had played down the risks and accused regulatory agencies of
overreacting.
-
- The European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA), the
European drug watchdog, and several medical studies have confirmed an
increased
risk of blood clots with third-generation pills.
-
- Thousands of British women abandoned the third-generation
pills in 1995 after the first studies indicated a slightly higher risk
of blood clots.
-
- The scare resulted in a warning to doctors and
pharmacists
about the dangers. Since the first warning many women have switched to
other pills.
-
- Doctors have said the risk of developing blood clots
may be higher for older women and those with an already increased risk
due to obesity, high blood pressure and smoking.
-
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