Yaz Birth Control Promised Too Much
Posted by: Annika Harris
Filed in:
news, video
12:30PM, Monday March 2nd 2009
The old Yaz commercial that overstates the drug’s benefits.
We’ll post the new ad ASAP!
Back in October, the Food and Drug Administration demanded that Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals say goodbye to the claims made in previous Yaz birth control pill commercials. As it turns out, Yaz isn’t approved to cure pimples or PMS, so the FDA and attorneys general from 27 states have required Bayer to correct previous marketing with a new $20 million ad campaign, which we’ve started seeing on TV. “You may have seen some Yaz commercials recently that were not clear,” an actress says in the new corrective commercial. “The FDA wants us to correct a few points in those ads.” Along with clarifying that the contraceptive pill won’t maintain clear skin or treat PMS, the new ads also point out the potential health risks associated with the drug, which were downplayed in previous ads. The whole thing comes across like an embarrassing, “Oops! We messed up big time!” apology from Bayer. We’ll put up the new commercial as soon as we can! [New York Times]
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yasminzar
wrote on March 2 2009 @ 12:31 pm: [report]
i sure wish there wasnt a birth control named after me :(
Humble Bee
wrote on March 2 2009 @ 01:09 pm: [report]
I knew it was too good to be true. Good thing I never buy anything based on the commercial… except for food..
shelleatualive
wrote on March 2 2009 @ 02:48 pm: [report]
Im on Yaz.. Not because of the commercial, because I had problems with my previous birth control and thats what my doctor recommended.
All I can really say it does is lighten my periods and cramps.. when they find a miracle drug that makes me not want to cry and eat chocolate one day out of the month ill def be first in line
andelizastrin
wrote on March 2 2009 @ 04:23 pm: [report]
I’ve known two people who were previously on Yaz, and both of them said it made them go nuts. Insane mood swings to the point of getting violent one minute, then crying over the littlest things the next. I realize that’s probably not the norm, but it definitely scared me away from it.
joyy
wrote on March 2 2009 @ 04:37 pm: [report]
@andelizastrin - I’ve had similar reactions to different BCs ... that were the saving grace of sanity for friends of mine. Everyone reacts differently to different things, so don’t let one or two people’s reaction to something scare you away from one method or another.
Also, if you know what works for you, don’t change it because a dr says “everyone loves *x*” - I had a dr in college who persuaded me to try the ring instead of the pill because “everyone [she] prescribed it to absolutely loved it.” When I was having a nervous breakdown among a myriad of other problems three weeks later, I told her to write me a script for what I asked for in the first place and proceeded to not have those problems when I went back to what I knew worked for me.
abbylyn
wrote on March 2 2009 @ 05:38 pm: [report]
I was on Yaz previously and loved it. The only reason I’m not still on it is I changed insurance companies and the new one doesn’t cover it. I am disappointed that the company would knowingly promote false advertising though.
miss game
wrote on March 3 2009 @ 10:33 am: [report]
I have been on Yasmin (not Yaz…) for about 5 years now and I love it. I actually started taking it for acne. It also made my hair straight! (I know, so random, but it is true)
I always thought the commercials for Yaz were sooo cheesy, and while they were making claims they shouldn’t have, the pill is used for things like acne and pms fairly regularly. I guess they just didn’t think of the consequences in the ridiculously PC world we live in.
pamuckraker
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 01:52 am: [report]
Similar charges were just settled over the birth control, Ortho Evra: http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/4872#more-4872