Study Confirms Birth Control Shot Is Linked To Brain Tumors, And Women Are Demanding Answers

For decades, Depo-Provera was marketed to women as a major convenience: you get one shot every three months, and you never have to remember a daily pill. But newly published research has revealed some devastating risks to women’s health behind the product’s promise, and now nearly a thousand women are pursuing justice against the manufacturer, Pfizer.

In a landmark study from the Cleveland Clinic, published in JAMA Neurology, over 10 million American women were analyzed, and researchers found that those who used Depo-Provera faced a 143% increased risk of brain tumors. Yes, you heard me right. This type of tumor, called meningiomas, can lead to vision loss, seizures, and even permanent neurological damage. To add insult to injury, long-term users were found to face a 290% risk of developing these brain tumors. And no other contraceptive researched in the study showed this same danger.

Researchers found that those who used Depo-Provera faced a 143% increased risk of brain tumors.

Evie spoke exclusively with attorney Chris Seeger, who is representing hundreds of women in lawsuits against Pfizer, for his take on the controversy and what semblance of justice could be provided for those affected. And according to Seeger, the findings shouldn’t only be alarming to the general public, but also confirm decades of ignored warnings and set a precedent for increased scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry.

The Science That Pfizer Ignored, and A System That Protects Companies Instead of Women

According to Seeger, Pfizer and the medical community more broadly actually knew about these risks as early as the 1980s. He explained that certain types of tumors were very receptive to progesterone—meningiomas being one. 

Though Depo-Provera didn’t exist as a contraceptive option in the 80s, researchers have known for quite some time that meningiomas are hormone-sensitive, and they often grow in response to synthetic hormones like progestins. Depo-Provera is uniquely dangerous in this regard because of its dosage. One shot delivers a high and sustained dose of medroxyprogesterone acetate that will remain in the woman’s body, active, for months at a time. Oral contraceptives, on the other hand, give a woman’s body a smaller dose of daily hormones and allow levels to drop if she stops using them. In contrast, Depo-Provera essentially bathes that woman’s body (and any of her hormone-sensitive tissue) in continuous progestins. The Cleveland Clinic study confirmed what smaller observational studies hinted at: this high-dose and long-duration exposure drastically increases the likelihood of tumor growth.

“There’s a lot of science on this, and it was all just ignored by Pfizer,” he said. According to Seeger, the drug approval process itself leaves patients vulnerable. Drugs must undergo placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials, but Seeger warned, “those studies are small and they don’t go for very long, so they don’t tend to show really serious side effects like this.”

Depo-Provera’s road to approval wasn’t an easy one, either. First, the shot was tested on poor women in developing countries, where reports came in for serious side effects as early as the 1970s. Somehow, the drug was still fast-tracked for American use despite lacking long-term safety data. Some critics claim Pfizer relied on short-term efficacy studies to push the drug through the FDA process and sidestepped the need to prove its neurological safety. 

This high-dose and long-duration exposure drastically increases the likelihood of tumor growth.

And what do you know? By the time it was widely prescribed here in the States, evidence already existed that progesterone could fuel tumor growth. But because it hadn’t been formally tested in larger scale, longer-term trials, Pfizer could then argue no definitive link had been established. In other words, their pocketbooks benefited from a loophole that still exists in the pharmaceutical approval system to this day.

“If you’re running a study with a hundred women in it and you only run it for three months, you’re probably going to miss the side effect,” he said. “And that’s exactly the game they play to get their drugs approved.”

Seeger believes the Depo-Provera issue is tied to a broader pattern of conflicts of interest in the medical field. He noted that many people within the medical community who are responsible for writing guidelines are retained by pharmaceutical companies and therefore have conflicts of interest due to the compensation they receive.

“The opioid epidemic, the Sackler family literally rewrote medical books, rewrote the science on the use of opioids. Doctors who were getting money from Purdue Pharma were rewriting the guidelines and telling other doctors, ‘Go ahead and prescribe this stuff,’” Seeger said. “Guidelines are manipulated to suit the needs of pharmaceutical companies, not consumers, and that’s exactly what Pfizer has done here.”

As a longtime litigator of cases just like these, Seeger is no stranger to the pharmaceutical industry shirking any sense of responsibility for their actions. First, he pointed out that Pfizer is still denying that Depo-Provera causes tumors to grow in women’s brains.

“That is an unbelievable lie,” he said. “I mean, the science is so overwhelming.”

Seeger also asserted that Pfizer is hiding behind the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which he said uses perhaps a couple of hundred medical reviewers who are responsible for thousands of products and drugs on the market. This structure could lead them to miss a lot. According to Seeger, Pfizer is essentially throwing their hands up, saying it gave the information to the FDA, but the FDA was the one who didn’t make them put a warning on the drug.

“What they gave to the FDA was like a needle in the haystack, and that’s the game pharmaceutical companies play,” Seeger said. The FDA doesn’t perform its own tests on these products. There are no scientists wearing lab coats—just medical reviewers reading studies and data provided to them from the pharmaceutical company. So, if the company perhaps hides information, lies about something, manipulates or dilutes data, the medical reviewer may green-light something as safe without further testing.

“Here’s the scary thing,” Seeger added. “The real tests of a pharmaceutical product is when they start selling it to the public, then it goes from very small studies into millions of people, potentially.”

The Human Cost Shows We Need Radical Change

When reflecting on the women who have been harmed, Seeger said the most common reaction is heartbreaking in its simplicity: “‘I thought it was safe.’” Many of these women have shared with him that their doctors similarly thought it was safe, because if you read the label, there’s nothing that could tell the consumer or the healthcare provider that a patient could get a brain tumor from a product like Depo-Provera.

One plaintiff, a mother of three, underwent multiple brain surgeries after developing meningiomas linked to nearly a decade of Depo-Provera use. After the surgeries, she still struggles with memory loss and fatigue. She cannot work full-time or care for her children as she used to. In her lawsuit, she claims Pfizer robbed her of her independence first by failing to warn her, but second by marketing Depo-Provera as a safe and low-maintenance option for busy women like her.

Another plaintiff went on Depo-Provera as a senior in college, thinking it was a convenient form of birth control. Within months, she suffered from debilitating headaches and blurred vision that was so severe, she had to drop out of school despite being so close to graduation. She got an MRI, which revealed a fast-growing meningioma pressing against her optic nerve. After she underwent brain surgery, she now has permanent partial vision loss. Her attorneys argue that a simple label warning could have led her in the direction of a safer contraceptive, yet that choice was taken from her.

One plaintiff, a mother of three, underwent multiple brain surgeries after developing meningiomas linked to nearly a decade of Depo-Provera use.

Others report living with seizures, memory loss, chronic headaches, and permanent neurological damage. Big Pharma can’t just shrug their shoulders and claim they’re rare or isolated cases because there’s a growing pool of women whose lives have been seriously altered by a drug they were told was safe.

Unlike conditions that could be reversed by discontinuing usage of the medication, the damage caused by meningiomas often lingers after the shots stop. And what may be most frustrating to those affected by this misinformation or those who simply care for a more transparent healthcare system in general is that justice in civil litigation has limits.

Given the Depo-Provera case is a civil case, not a criminal case, the most that could ever be collected for families is compensation, Seeger noted. All in all, there’s no perfect outcome then, because in many cases like these that Seeger takes on, they cannot reverse the damage already done.

Still, Seeger finds it critical to press for accountability in any way, shape, or form. He argued that pharmaceutical companies already have the authority to update their labels as soon as they identify a risk. But, they won’t do it.

“They start this multi-year process of negotiating with the FDA, and unfortunately, many of the folks at the FDA are in on this, and they allow these negotiations to drag out,” he explained. “The result of that is Pfizer still hasn’t changed their label. And when they’re asked, ‘Why haven’t you done it?’ They say, ‘Well, we’re negotiating with the FDA and that takes a long time.’”

Pharmaceutical companies must step up and take care of the people they’ve injured, Seeger argued, and they must change their labels to remain accountable. International regulators have already acted on this evidence, so it begs the question: what’s stopping us here in the States? 

In Europe, Canada, and Australia, the label for Depo-Provera is required to carry a warning about the risk of meningiomas. In France, regulators even restricted its use after studies showed the very real dangers. But here in the States, no warning exists, and doctors have continued to prescribe the shot without being fully informed.

In Europe, Canada, and Australia, the label for Depo-Provera is required to carry a warning about the risk of meningiomas. In France, regulators even restricted its use after studies showed the very real dangers.

Pfizer recently filed an amended prior-approval supplement with the FDA, renewing its request to add a meningioma warning—after new research and mounting litigation. Convenient timing. If the plaintiffs are right, the company knew about potential risks and dragged its feet. The question now is whether U.S. regulators will align with other nations, or if American women will keep getting treated like test subjects in service of pharma profits.

“It might cost them a few dollars if they tell the truth, but you’ve got to tell the truth,” Seeger said. “The system is broken and it needs to be fixed.”

Final Thoughts

While this one scandal is in no way a blanket warning about all contraceptives posing serious risks like meningiomas, it should raise red flags for women everywhere about just how compromised the entire medical system may be. When companies are aware of risks but delay or deny them, women then suffer the consequences. 

Until we’re guaranteed accountability through lawsuits, regulatory change, or public pressure, women in America remain in the dark about a danger that other countries already warn against. And every day without that warning, more women are unknowingly gambling with their health. Just how long will we accept this treatment?