Bayer announced on Friday that the company will stop the sale of its Essure birth control implant in the U.S. by the end of the year due to the controversy attached with the product.
The German pharmaceutical giant will stop selling the device, which has caused it plenty of headaches over the years in the form of lawsuits from thousands of women who said that the metal implant led to a slew of injuries, including the perforation of the uterus and the fallopian tubes.
Back in April, after meeting with advocates for women who say they were injured by Essure, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pushed Bayer to limit the sales of the birth control implant to doctors’ offices and medical practices for women who were fully informed about the risks of the device.
Essure was approved back in 2002 and the company has been hit with nearly 27,000 reports of adverse effects caused by the device through the end of 2017, although the FDA notes that some of those reports may have been duplicates.
“With side effects ranging from hair loss and tooth loss to chronic pain, severe bleeding, miscarriages and even death, the benefit risk profile touted by Bayer simply didn’t jibe with the data that was pouring into the F.D.A. from both patients and physicians,” Madris. Tomes, a former FDA medical device official, said.
