It was early 2012 when doctors found a tumor in Kim Franzi's brain. Franzi underwent a risky two-day brain surgery to remove the mass, which doctors warned could leave her paralyzed or prove fatal. The operation was successful, but more than 13 years later, she still suffers from side effects, including issues with her reflexes, teeth, hearing, and vision. Before discovering the tumor, Franzi used the birth control shot Depo-Provera for more than 15 years. The shot has been used by roughly one in four sexually active women in the United States, bringing in hundreds of millions in profits annually for the pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer, which manufactures and distributes the drug. But according to more than 1,200 lawsuits, Pfizer has failed to properly warn the public about long-established links between Depo-Provera and meningiomas. That includes a lawsuit submitted on Franzi's behalf, plus more than 9,500 cases that have yet to be filed. In 2024, a large study of more than 18,000 cases of women undergoing surgery for meningiomas found that "prolonged use of [Depo-Provera] was found to increase the risk of intracranial meningioma." Specifically, the scientists found that use of Depo-Provera was associated with a more than five-fold heightened risk of developing a meningioma that required surgery, and that risk increased further if patients used Depo-Provera for more than a year. Drug labels for Depo-Provera in the European Union, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada ... warn about these brain tumors.