A television commercial for Barr Pharmaceuticals’s Seasonale misleads consumers by excluding risk information to make the birth control pill seem safer, U.S. health regulators warned in a letter.
The commercial suggests use of the oral contraceptive leads to only four menstrual periods a year but fails to mention frequent and sometimes substantial bleeding, the FDA said in the Dec. 29 letter.
Barr’s advertisement, which was created by PACE Advertising of Parsippany, N.J., plays down the risk of irregular menstrual bleeding that can be as heavy as a regular period by suggesting it would subside with continued use of the pill, the letter said.
