Birth Control

Shanta Russell had been taking her birth-control pills faithfully for more than a dozen years without a hitch. So when pregnancy tests kept turning up positive in June 2011, she was stunned.

Shock turned to anger three months later when the single Kansas City woman received a recall notice in the mail warning that the pills she had taken may have been placed in the wrong order in their blister packs. The mistake could render the pills ineffective.

The latest study by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics shows that women are using IUD devices like Bayer’s Mirena more than seven times as much as they were a decade ago, according to a WebMD report on October 18, 2012.

However, the news comes as the FDA has received more than 45,000 adverse reports of complications among women using Mirena. The Adverse Events report on November 20, 2012 tracks the FDA’s AERS reports through June 30, 2012.