When Nicola McKay started taking Depo-Provera in the early 2000s, she did what most people do with a doctor-recommended contraceptive — she assumed it was safe. The nurse from Portmahomak, a small coastal village in the Scottish Highlands, received the injection every three months without much second thought. It was convenient. It worked. She had a career to focus on and a life to live.
Then, in February of last year, she had five seizures in a single day.
The scan that followed delivered news she wasn’t prepared for: three non-cancerous brain tumours, known as meningiomas, sitting inside her skull. McKay, 53, underwent surgery, but the tumors were not entirely removed. One was shrunk by radiotherapy. She now has to deal with a lifetime of medication, routine scans every six months, and the constant threat of further seizures. Only a few weeks ago, she and two others were admitted to the hospital.
Her case is more difficult to understand because of the pattern rather than just the diagnosis. Since then, McKay claims she has made contact with numerous other women who took Depo-Provera for an extended period of time and experienced the same kind of tumor. It’s difficult to write that off as a coincidence. Lawyers and regulators eventually notice this kind of pattern.
McKay is now one of roughly 150 women in Scotland at the early stages of legal action against Pfizer, the drug’s manufacturer. The lawsuit claims the pharmaceutical company was aware of the link between Depo-Provera and meningioma development and failed to adequately warn patients. Pfizer, on the other hand, has stated that patient safety is still their top priority and that they continuously monitor all of their medications. The company updated the patient information leaflet in 2024 with a warning about brain tumors in cooperation with the MHRA, the UK’s medicines regulator. This legal dispute may take years to determine whether or not that update was timely.
Meningiomas are categorized as benign tumors, which may seem comforting until you realize the potential consequences. They can result in chronic headaches, vision loss, hearing loss, balance problems, seizures, and long-lasting cognitive changes, depending on where they develop. A number of the women participating in this campaign have had significant brain surgery. One, Tammy Croston from Fife, who was among the first to publicly discuss her experience in the UK, lost the ability to use her right eye after surgery. In that situation, the word “benign” begins to seem insufficient.
As this story progresses, it seems to fit a longer, uncomfortable history. It has frequently taken longer than it should for women’s health issues to come to light, be looked into, and be taken seriously. The women who met with a cross-party group of MSPs at the Scottish Parliament in June were not advocating for the elimination of contraceptive options. They were requesting information, the kind of direct, unambiguous information that could have altered their choice to use drugs for ten, twenty, or even thirty years. According to current research, there is still a low overall risk of developing a meningioma from Depo-Provera; however, a low risk calculated across a large population still means real people with real tumors.
McKay speaks about her former life with the kind of precision that only comes from loss. She describes herself as adventurous, outgoing, always busy. Nursing wasn’t just a job — it was who she was. Now she is the patient, being looked after rather than doing the looking after. That specific inversion, for someone who built an identity around care, carries a weight that statistics don’t capture.
It’s still unclear how far this legal action will go or what it will ultimately establish about the drug’s risks. But one thing seems certain: the women behind this lawsuit aren’t going quietly. They want the next generation of women to have what they did not have: a real, well-informed choice. They have had their lives changed in ways that no one warned them about.
