HMM: Actress Sues Yasmin Birth Control Over Her Stroke. Don’t know about the merits of the suit, but birth control pills were probably the cause of Helen’s heart attack.

UPDATE: Reader Scott Boone emails:

Your post on the InstaWife’s stroke/birth control relation hit close: I have a good friend (an ex-girlfriend) who is currently facing criminal Child Endangerment and DUI charges (two separate events) here in Pennsylvania (Allentown). She has been experiencing random, spontaneous “transient states of awareness”, whereby she blacks out and becomes confused, sometimes for hours. During one occasion she “lost” her children at a store; during the other she woke up in the middle of the night and drove and wrecked her car into two parked cars.

I’ve been providing a lot of primary care for her, mostly because it scares the bejeesus out of me that something like this can happen to a 33 year old out of the blue. She’s been to Psychiatrists, Neurologists, Epileptologists, drug & alcohol clinics, in and out of hospitals, underwent EEGs, EKGs, you name it! Of course the crim-just folks just KNOW she’s a drug addict. The Doc’s say there is no evidence of such. The current “thought” is epilepsy.

But in doing research on the internet we have happened upon a correlative relationship: she had the Mirena hormonal IUD installed on New Year’s Eve. It was the second insertion, her body rejected the first. By mid-January she was experiencing the events. Arrested first within 60 days, arrested twice within 90. Her cycles are erratic and non-cyclical. There are many reports of “Ambien-like” behavior tied to the Mirena on the ‘net. She is currently following up with her OB-GYN, whose approach seems merely “well, we’ll remove it.”

But how can it be that we are so unaware in this country of the problems of birth control hormones that we are CRIMINALLY CHARGING innocent women? She is left dealing with massive legal bills, got fired from her job, has to pay COBRA out of pocket, lost her driving privileges, and, worst of all for a mother, lost custody of her children.

Sounds like the authorities jumped to conclusions, as they are wont to do. Also, numerous readers point out that while birth-control side effects are underappreciated, pregnancy can be dangerous too. . . .