Safyral Is Just Yasmin Beefed Up with Vitamin B

Falmouth, NSWhile the Bayer birth control product Safyral lacks the profile of the more talked-about Yasmin and Yaz, any accusation against the latter is a damnation against the former. In other words, there is just as much concern over Safyral blood clots as any of the others. That’s because they all contain drospirenone, which some studies have suggested carries a higher risk for blood clot and deep-vein thrombosis (DVT).

What’s more, Safyral is actually Yasmin under a different wrapper. The official Bayer website for Safyral clearly states that Safyral combines Yasmin with folate, a B vitamin. The pitch for Safyral, according to the website, is the inclusion of folate as an added benefit, “which is recommended for women in their reproductive years. Folate lowers the risk of having rare neural tube birth defects in a pregnancy occurring during Safyral use or shortly after stopping.”

Safyral, akin to Bayer’s Beyaz and the other two blockbusters Yaz and Yasmin, has been heavily marketed to young women seeking added value from their contraceptives, such as help with bloating, PMS symptoms and even the mitigation of acne. However, the basket of Safyral side effects is similar to those of Yaz, Yasmin and Beyaz in that they all are based on the vilified drospirenone.

The US Food and Drug Administration, in its 2012 warning about drospirenone-based contraceptives, included Safyral in its cautionary statement.

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its review of recent observational (epidemiologic) studies regarding the risk of blood clots in women taking drospirenone-containing birth control pills. Drospirenone is a synthetic version of the female hormone, progesterone, also referred to as a progestin. Based on this review, the FDA has concluded that drospirenone-containing birth control pills may be associated with a higher risk for blood clots than other progestin-containing pills.

“The revised drug labels (Beyaz, Safyral, Yasmin and Yaz) will report that some epidemiologic studies reported as high as a three-fold increase in the risk of blood clots for drospirenone-containing products when compared to products containing levonorgestrel or some other progestins, whereas other epidemiological studies found no additional risk of blood clots with drospirenone-containing products. The labels also will include a summary of the previously released results of an FDA-funded study of the blood clot risk.”

And so Safyral is Yasmin with a B vitamin. Similarly, Beyaz is Yaz beefed up with Vitamin B. All contain drospirenone and subject to drospirenone side effects, so the lines are blurred.

Thus, when 18-year-old Katelynne “Katt” Fisher started taking Yaz for birth control, only to be felled by a massive blood clot a month later, could the same fate have befallen the pretty Canadian teen were she to have used Beyaz or Safyral?

All four of the Bayer contraceptives in the class contain drospirenone, together with slightly different formulations. And it is important to note - as the FDA does itself - that ALL birth control pills carry a small risk for blood clot. However, various studies have suggested that drospirenone-based birth control pills carry a higher risk for blood clot - including Safyral blood clots - than older-generation pills. While Bayer continues to stand by its products in the face of a myriad of lawsuits, countless women continue to encounter grievous health issues and even death when a blood clot wreaks havoc like a bull in a china shop.

And while Bayer continues to postulate that drospirenone-based birth control pills such as Safyral (Yasmin with folate) present no greater risk for blood clots than other birth control pills, the parents of 23 young Canadian women who died dare to differ.

According to The Hants Journal (6/25/13), Katelynne Fisher spent eight days in a coma after a large blood clot formed in her brain and induced a seizure. A series of strokes soon followed, and surgeons spent 11 hours in a delicate operation in an attempt to break the clot apart. The teen from Falmouth, Nova Scotia, never regained consciousness. According to Leah Fisher, who has joined a Canadian class-action lawsuit against Bayer, doctors suggested that the Yaz birth control pills her daughter had been prescribed were the only risk factors they could detect that contributed to her clotting. The teen did not smoke or drink, was active and healthy in every other respect.

She was taking Yaz, which is a cousin to Yasmin, which is Safyral with a B vitamin. They all contain drospirenone, which lends to the concern over Safyral side effects. If you damn one, you damn them all…