Shock findings: Contraceptive injection may be tied to brain tumours

CapeTalk's Clarence Ford is joined by Marion Edmunds, Carte Blanche producer to talk about the programme's recent investigation into MPA/ Depo-Provera and brain tumours.

Listen below:

Is there a link between a popular contraceptive injection and brain tumours? 

Edmunds says in other parts of the world, class actions have been brought against the manufacturers of Depo Provera, Pfizer.

In an investigation covering two continents, Carte Blanche has found evidence that suggests a possible connection between the long-term use of Depo-Provera and the development of certain brain tumours.

Depo is a hugely popular 12-week lasting contraceptive injected into millions of women worldwide.

"3.6 million women in South Africa take Depo...and the overall figure globally is 74 million."

- Marion Edmunds, Producer - Carte Blanche 

As the programme reports, an increasing number of women who have presented with brain tumours called  'sphenoid wing meningiomas' all have one thing in common - they have all used Depo-Provera.

Many patients with these tumours have shared their symptoms, which include dizziness, seizures, blurry vision, and severe headaches.

These tumours often grow slowly over years and can seriously harm the brain and eyes, sometimes requiring complicated, life-saving surgery.

"They're called benign because they're not cancerous, and in the beginning when you see benign you think: `They can't be that bad'."

- Marion Edmunds, Producer - Carte Blanche 

"Some of the women I interviewed, they hadn't noticed they had a brain tumour until about seven or ten years of it growing in their heads."

- Marion Edmunds, Producer - Carte Blanche 

The episode is available to watch at 7pm on Thursday.