At least 40 women in Scotland have been afflicted with brain tumors due to Pfizer’s Depo-Provera contraceptive injections, attorneys have disclosed, and the numbers are growing.
The lawsuits in Scotland are but a fraction of the global cases of women suing Pfizer over Depo-Provera-inflicted brain tumors, which often cause devastating effects and leave them disfigured. In the U.S., a Depo-Provera brain tumor multidistrict litigation (MDL) currently has 1,752 pending cases.
Women are suffering from sight loss, bulging eyes, epilepsy, headaches, and other harms following prolonged use of a contraceptive injection that they say they were never properly warned about.
“You can’t put an atomic bomb equivalent of a medical device on the market and put a warning on it and think that you can get away with that,” Patrick McGuire of Thompsons Solicitors, which is representing the Scottish women in the lawsuit, told SkyNews.
“It’s just not that simple. The product wasn’t safe. The warnings were not that clear. And the women have suffered the most horrific injuries. They are entitled to compensation,” he said.
The attorney told Edinburgh Live that the national case is one of the “fastest growing” he has ever seen.
The Daily Record was the first to report that a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2024 found that prolonged use of Depo-Provera causes a heightened risk of developing meningioma brain tumours.
“Since the publication of the Daily Record investigation we have had thousands of interactions on Thompsons Scotland’s social media platforms and hundreds of phone enquiries. This has led to 40 cases now being pursued but that number will undoubtedly rise as many more cases are being assessed by my team,” said McGuire.
“It is very early days in this class action, but what is very clear is that Depo-Provera is implicated in horrifying adverse health outcomes from women across Scotland. It is one of the fastest growing legal actions I have ever experienced.”
One of the afflicted, Kirsty Moore, who took the shot for over 20 years, found out about her tumor in 2021 after she suffered from headaches and swelling in her right eye. She has since undergone four operations to remove the meningioma, which is growing on an optic nerve.
However, the tumor has continued to grow since these surgeries. Moore is now trying a “grueling” six-week regimen of radiotherapy to attempt to curb the growth.
“It’s shocking and I don’t doubt that many more women will come forward as time goes on. I hope these numbers encourage powers to ban the jab in Scotland,” she told Edinburgh Live.
Another Scottish woman, Lindsay Tinney, a 50-year-old mother of four, has been left epileptic from her tumor after a 10-hour brain surgery was performed to remove the meningioma, which was the size of a tennis ball by the time it was discovered. She took Depo-Provera for seven years.
The lawsuits against Pfizer complain that the pharmaceutical giant did not warn Depo-Provera users of the risk of meningiomas after prolonged use.
The pharma company has been subject to numerous major lawsuits over the past few decades, including one from Texas in 2023 for allegedly misrepresenting the efficacy of its COVID-19 shots and attempting to squelch public criticism of the experimental drug.
In fact, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has referred to Pfizer, along with other vaccine producers, as “convicted serial felon(s).” In January 2020, a class-action lawsuit was filed “accusing Pfizer of hiding the fact that Zantac contains a carcinogen,” reported Becker’s Hospital Review.
In 2009, Pfizer Inc. paid $2.3 billion, “the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice,” according to the DOJ, for illegally promoting drugs for off-label use or at unapproved dosages.