Depo-Provera’s Alleged Link To Brain Tumors Should Make You Wonder What’s In Your Birth Control
Corporate media often smear birth control skeptics for believing “misinformation” about the harms synthetic hormones can have on women’s bodies and minds. A flurry of nearly 300 lawsuits from females alleging that the popular “safe and effective” birth control shot Depo-Provera played a role in their development of brain and spine tumors, however, suggests women should question the effects of any drug sold to them — especially those designed to prevent pregnancy.
Upjohn Company, one of Pfizer’s acquisitions, debuted the birth control shot in the 1950s. Upon injection, the synthetic progestoerone cocktail is supposed to suppress ovulation and prevent pregnancy in women for up to three months at a time.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration initially approved the drug for limited contraceptive use in 1974. Widespread concern about cancer risks, however, forced the FDA to deny it a “general marketing licence” just four years later in 1978.
By 1992, however, the FDA had rubber-stamped Depo-Provera, which was increasingly prescribed to women off-label as birth control under the condition that its manufacturer would conduct “post-market studies of the risk of osteoporosis.”
It wasn’t until years after that Depo-Provera’s official label would disclose a warning about “loss of bone mineral density” and recommend less than two years’ use.
There is also evidence that Depo-Provera may cause side effects such as weight gain, bleeding, bloating, headaches, and depression; appears to cause varying and increasing likelihood of breast cancer; and “sometimes has an abortifacient effect,” according to pro-life activists.
Yet the shot was marketed for decades to women as an affordable, low-maintenance, “safe and convenient” way to keep their pregnancy chances low without sacrificing their sex lives. The injection’s makers particularly focused on selling the drug to low-income women across the globe. From 2015 to 2019, approximately 24.5 percent of sexually active women between 15 and 49 years old received at least one Depo-Provera injection.
Untold Tumor Risk
It wasn’t until a landmark study published in the British Medical Journal in March 2024 found that women who took Depo-Provera had a 500 percent higher risk of developing a meningioma (a tumor that specifically forms and develops in the membranes around the brain and spinal cord) than women who did not get the shot that women across the world realized the connection.
A February 2025 study purported to confirm that the chemical compound that makes up Depo-Provera increases the risk of meningioma in women who take it.
“We believe the results of this study further warrants the need to alert women about this serious, albeit rare adverse event,” the study’s authors concluded.
The studies sparked hundreds of lawsuits from women who had suffered seemingly random cranial complications that they later discovered may have been caused by their birth control injections.
Pfizer lists brain and spine tumors as a potential side effect to its Depo-Provera customers in Europe, and it has done so in Canada since at least 2015. Their contraception consumers in the United States, however, were not made aware of the meningioma risk associated with the injection.
Most of the reported meningiomas were benign, but their proximity to sensitive organs such as the brain and spinal cord proved to be problematic for some women who experienced headaches, weakness, fatigue, vision loss and hearing loss, aphasia, seizures, and more. The lawsuits suggest some women required various drugs or radiation to shrink the tumors, craniotomies to remove them, or both.
The increasing number of women seeking legal recourse for Pfizer’s alleged failure to warn about complications of Depo-Provera eventually forced a consolidation into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of Florida in February, which is ongoing.
The lawyers involved in the MDL have publicly expressed confidence that their plaintiffs will secure accountability and potentially even compensation for the Depo-Provera fallout. The damage for many of those women, however, was done the moment they were told taking a synthetic hormone was safe, effective, and potentially even beneficial for them.
The Fine Print
Women are increasingly ditching hormonal birth control for natural alternatives such as tracking their cycles or abstaining from sex altogether.
They’ve seen over the last 60 or so years how the pills sold to them (often at a young age) as a miracle pregnancy prevention tool or wonder fix for period pains, stubborn acne, mood swings, and classic puberty symptoms have the potential to cause cancer and other bodily harms that sometimes last a lifetime.
Not to mention the long list of birth control side effects that have the potential to plague women daily, including bleeding, headaches, weight gain, nausea, increased blood pressure, breast tenderness, low libido, acne, mood swings, heightened stroke and heart attack risk, blood clots, liver disorders, depression, ovarian cysts, pelvic pain, and more, along with increased risk of suicide.
Yet the conversation about the decision to ditch contraception is laden with dishonesty, deception, and even censorship fueled by pharmaceutical companies and corporate media. If the Depo-Provera fallout proves anything, it’s that women should be privy to more information and discussion about the effects birth control will have on their physical, mental, and spiritual health, not less.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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