Bayer Defeats Appeal in Beyaz Birth Control Pill Stroke Case

Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals Inc. defeated a lawsuit on behalf of a Georgia woman who suffered a catastrophic stroke allegedly caused by its Beyaz birth control pills, after the Eleventh Circuit said Tuesday her doctor would have prescribed the drugs even with a stronger warning.

Karen and Michael Hubbard therefore failed to link Bayer’s allegedly inadequate warning to Karen Hubbard’s injury, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said. Under Georgia’s learned intermediary principle, a drugmaker’s duty to warn runs to the physician.

Hubbard had been taking Beyaz for a little less than a year when she suffered a ...