Group Urges F.D.A. to Take Contraceptive Off Market

WASHINGTON (AP) — A consumer advocacy group petitioned the government Thursday to pull the birth control patch off the market, calling it far riskier than the pill.

“Ortho-Evra is a poor choice for women,” Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the group, Public Citizen, wrote the Food and Drug Administration.

Warnings about the Ortho-Evra weekly patch have escalated since a 2005 investigation by The Associated Press found that patch users had higher rates of life-threatening blood clots than did women who took birth control pills.

Blood clots are a rare side effect for estrogen-related products. Some studies of the risk suggest that patch users have twice the risk of clots in the legs and lungs as do women who swallow the pill because patients absorb up to 60 percent more estrogen with the patch. The Food and Drug Administration updated the patch’s label in 2005, 2006 and earlier this year with clot warnings.

NY Times