Alert over popular type of contraception that could raise risk of brain tumours five-fold - hundreds launch legal action

Hundreds of women in the UK are considering legal action over fears that a widely-used contraceptive jab has put them at risk of a potentially-fatal brain tumour.

NHS data suggest there are around 10,000 prescriptions for medroxyprogesterone acetate – known under the brand name Depo Provera – issued every month in England.

However, a 2024 study in the British Medical Journal revealed women who used it for more than a year were five times more likely to suffer a meningioma, the most common type of tumour in the brain.

An estimated 3,240 people a year in the UK are diagnosed with the condition.

The UK drug safety watchdog – the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority – last October called for the jab’s manufacturer, the global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, to include a warning about the heightened risk in patient information leaflets.

Pfizer also wrote to NHS doctors urging them to immediately stop women from using Depo Provera if they were diagnosed with a meningioma.

The drug is a hormone injection give every three months and works by preventing eggs from being released by a woman’s ovaries.

It was first licensed for use on the NHS as a contraceptive over 40 years ago.

But the BMJ study, by a team of scientists from the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety, raised the alarm over the jab’s safety.

It analysed data on more than 18,000 women in France who underwent surgery for meningioma between 2009 and 2018.

Although non-cancerous, the condition can cause blurred vision, headaches, hearing loss, poor sense of smell and problems with swallowing. Tumours are normally slow-growing but can kill by compressing the brain and nerves if they grow too big.

Meningiomas develop in the meninges, the membrane that lines the outside of the brain, and are more common in women.

The French study showed that while the numbers developing meningioma while using the jab were still small, they were significantly higher than in women not on it.

No such increase in risk has been found with other hormonal contraceptives – such as the pill.

Around 400 women in the US have so far joined a class action against Pfizer and other generic manufacturers of the jab, alleging that they were aware of the link but failed to adequately warn users of the risks or promote safer alternatives.

All the women developed meningiomas after using Depo Provera for at least a year.

A hearing in the case is due to take place later this week in Florida, in which a judge is expected to set out a timeline for future proceedings.

‘This case is moving at speed and this hearing will bring us closer to achieving justice for women who have never been warned about the increased risk of developing a brain tumour,’ said Virginia Buchanan, partner at Levin Papantonio, the law firm handling the case in the US.

A leading UK medico-legal expert, who asked not to be identified, said his firm has been approached in recent months by around 200 women who feared the contraceptive jab was to blame for their meningioma diagnosis, or had put them at increased risk of one.

It’s not yet clear whether there will be a UK class action similar to that in the US, since Britain has a more restrictive approach to group-based litigation cases.

However, individual lawsuits are a possibility, the expert said.

Dr Noemie Rowland, a GP who led the French study on the links with brain tumours, said women on the jab should have regular scans to see if they had growths developing.

‘Neurological monitoring should be the rule in patients over 40 years of age to detect a meningioma as soon as possible,’ she said.

Pfizer UK said it was unable to comment.