Langdon & Emison attorney Brett A. Emison was a featured author in the Winter 2012 edition of the Safety Report, a national magazine dedicated to consumer safety. His article takes on the issue of Yaz and other birth control pills that pose serious health risks to consumers.
"One set of contraceptive pills – Bayer’s popular contraceptives Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella - have been found to have particularly dangerous side effects," Brett writes. "These drugs are marketed under different names, but are chemically the same. The problem lies primarily with their key chemical ingredient, Drospirenone.
"Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella combine estrogen with the synthetic progestin Drospirenone. No other oral contraceptive (or birth control pill) contains Drospirenone. The combination of chemicals in Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella have been linked to potentially deadly side effects including heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, and gallbladder disease.
"Despite these documented problems, Bayer released a new birth control pill this winter, Beyaz, that is virtually the same chemical formulation as Yaz and Yasmin. Beyaz simply adds Folic Acid (Vitamin B-9) to the Yaz formulation, which includes the progestin drospirenone. Recent studies have shown that women using birth control pills like Yaz, Yasmin and Beyaz that contain drospirenone are 64 percent more likely to develop blood clots than women taking birth control pills not containing the drospirenone hormone component."
Brett's legal practice focuses on the defense of people who have suffered catastrophic injury, or who have lost a loved one due to someone else's negligence. This array of personal injury litigation has included automobile defects, railroad crossing accidents (train accidents), trucking accidents, dangerous or defective drugs, defective medical devices, and a variety of other cases. A member of the Executive Committee of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, Brett was named an "Up and Coming Lawyer" by Missouri Lawyers Weekly in 2011 as one of the state's top lawyers under the age of 40.
