A Warning From a Lawyer About NuvaRing Birth Control Side Effects

Taking a risk is one thing, but taking 6x the risk, well that is another – especially when there are safer alternatives for birth control. When information is made available, you are able to do research about the risks and benefits of one form over another. But when the information is not provided by the makers of a drug like the ring, then you are left to fend for yourself. If you go to the manufacturers site, you may not find what you would if you were to review online forums where women like you have posted about their experience with blood clots and strokes that they related to the birth control ring.

Now, with the information finally placed in the public domain by BMJ, these brave women who had shared their stories online are being proven right. Those women who shared what they experienced – be it pain in the left leg from DVT, shortness of breath from a PE, horrible pain in their chest, dizziness, collapsing and losing consciousness, feeling like they were going to have a heart attack, or worse yet strokes and death. Yes, I said death from birth control! Some of what had been shared in sites like topix.com was sadly posted by a surviving family member. For many, the study published May 2012 by BMJ was too late to prevent injury – but perhaps it has come in time to help them or their families prove that the vaginal ring was the cause of the harm and injuries suffered. And hopefully it has come in time to save many women from ever being placed at risk.

Even now the information is not placed front and center by the makers of this product. Rather, they may be providing the minimal information required by the FDA. You can be the judge of that. Watch a vaginal ring commercials now. Listen to the messages that they put in there – all the side effects that they quickly mention, messages of dire possible outcomes that contrast with the fun loving and life filled images. It is shocking that they don't make the ads more upfront about the risks, rather than distracting you away from these risks with everything else in the ads. Why haven't they taken out ads to promote what has been proven by the study shown in BMJ.

Women have a right to use birth control. But I also believe that the exercise of this right should be informed with a knowledge of the risks of the choices they make. If it was my wife or my child, I would tell them to "Stay Away from these vaginal birth control rings." Especially with what is now known about the risk for blood clots caused by a type of Desogestrel, a synthetic estrogen found in these 3rd generation forms of birth control. But that is only because I am informed with the information from the BMJ study.

Now, why are there 3rd generation products? I have my theory and it has to do with dollars and cents. Since the patents have run on the much safer 2nd generation products, I think that the manufacturers, in order to make more profits, had to invent something new. Well, there is an old saying that goes, "if it ain't broken, don't fix it." Since the products before these were safer, why invent a new one? I can only guess that their profits were broken, so they fixed the profit problem at the expense of this 6.5x increased risk of clots.

For those who have not been harmed, we need to be thankful. And we need to be thankful that BMJ published this study. We can only hope that in the future women will learn of this study and not continue to use the birth control ring or Desogestrel products like it with the increased risks identified by the study in BMJ and that they will now opt for other forms of birth control.

– Michael Monheit, Esq. is an attorney licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and is investigating birth control injuries. More information on his investigation is available on his website. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and Temple University Law School, he is the founder of Pennsylvania: Monheit Law and a member of PA and NJ Law Firm: Anapol Schwartz.