On Friday, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) determined that the lawsuits concerning the Depo-Provera contraceptive injection will be consolidated under Federal Judge M. Casey Rodgers and tried in the Northern District of Florida in Pensacola. Levin Papantonio’s Virginia Buchanan will take the lead on several cases before the court.
- MDLs are used when many similar lawsuits are filed, allowing them to move through the legal process together in a more efficient and streamlined manner.
In its order (MDL-3140-Transfer_Order-1-25 ), the panel wrote: “The Northern District of Florida is an appropriate transferee district for this litigation. Two related actions are pending in this district, which offers the necessary judicial resources and expertise to manage this nationwide litigation in an efficient and convenient manner. Judge M. Casey Rodgers, to whom we assign this MDL, is an able jurist with extensive and exceptional experience presiding over large product liability MDLs. We are confident that she will steer this litigation on a prudent and expeditious course.”
DEPO-PROVERA
Depo-Provera is a popular birth control shot that contains the progestin hormone. Produced by Pfizer, the shot hit the U.S. market more than 30 years ago and was the first female birth control method to be advertised on TV.
- In its December 2023 National Health Statistics Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that around “one in four sexually experienced women had ever used the injectable contraceptive DepoProvera (24.5%).”
A large epidemiological study published last April found that users of the drug are at a significantly higher risk of developing meningiomas, a type of brain tumor. The lawsuits claim Pfizer failed to warn users of potential brain tumor risks.
LOCAL CASES
Levin Papantonio has filed multiple Depo-Provera lawsuits on behalf of women who developed meningiomas after using the birth control shots. Senior partner Virginia Buchanan has taken the lead on the cases for the firm.
“We expect that hundreds and likely thousands of cases will be centralized in Pensacola in Judge Rodgers’ Court,” Buchanan said. “Judge Rodgers is respected by lawyers around the country for her handling of the 3M earplugs litigation, one of the largest multidistrict litigations in history. Given that extensive experience, she and her staff and colleagues in the Northern District will be well suited to handle this litigation.”
In December, I interviewed Levin Papantonio partner Chris Paulos about the drug.
“Depo-Provera is most commonly prescribed as a contraceptive for birth control,” said Paulos. “It was originally approved to help treat heavy menstrual bleeding, uterine cancers and things in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but slowly became used off-label, mostly as an injectable contraceptive. It’s the only product that is used that is an injection, and it’s administered every basically 90 days to prevent contraception.”
Paulos touched on how Depo-Provera was tested and eventually received FDA approval.
“The first thing that Upjohn did was they took this synthetic hormone that they made, and they started using it in human populations in about 76 countries outside the United States that had less stringent safety standards or no FDA type entity in those countries at all,” he said. “But when they first started testing this on humans, it was in the early ‘70s, and they had two investigational new drug programs going on here in the United States. One focused on the use of Depo-Provera with women to prevent pregnancy. And then the other was done at Johns Hopkins University involving men and the process of chemical castration.”
Though the drug wasn’t approved to be used as a contraceptive, doctors prescribed it to thousands of women. So many prescriptions were written that Congress held a hearing on the rampant use of Depo-Provera for an unapproved use, Paulos said.
By the time the FDA approved it as a contraceptive product in the early ‘90s, the attorney said, “At that point, there were so many people using it already for that purpose.”
- A large epidemiological study published last April examined tens of thousands of patients in France over multiple years. The researchers investigated the relationship between Depo-Provera use and the development of meningiomas, a type of brain tumor.
“They determined after adjusting for confounding variables and other potential causes that women who use Depo-Provera for any more than about two administrations are at an increased risk of developing a brain tumor called a meningioma,” Paulos said. “And if you use Depo-Provera between three and five years, your chances of developing those types of brain tumors shoot up 500-fold.”
