Newsday, "Problems Cited with Drug Patches"

          About 12 million people use sleek medical patches that deliver medication through the skin. But despite the ease of use provided by the transdermal patches, serious side effects - ranging from blood clots to deaths - have been blamed on some of them.
          Debra Roinestad, 37, a former bit-part actress on "Saturday Night Live" and Hofstra University graduate student, points to her use of the Evra birth control patch made by Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary in Raritan, N.J.
          On a sunny Friday morning last September, Roinestad and her husband, Kurt, had just eaten a waffle breakfast at a local restaurant. As they returned to their home in Sound Beach, Roinestad said, she felt a sensation "like a ton of elephants crushing my chest."
          Roinestad's husband rushed her to John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson. She recalled recently that doctors told her blood clots had filled her lungs and she was in danger of death. Roinestad said her doctors blamed the clots on her Ortho-McNeil contraceptive patch.
          Roinestad received medication to treat the clots but says she continues to experience severe fatigue. She no longer works, has trouble breathing and has given up her grad studies.
          "My dreams have been stolen," she said. "Things people take for granted, like taking a shower, I work very hard for."
          Roinestad is suing Ortho-McNeil; her case alleging that Evra almost killed her is one of hundreds of lawsuits filed by women across the country against the company for injuries they say resulted from using the beige-colored patch.