tonight on "nightline," bitter pill. it was pitched as birth control with benefits and millions of women made the switch. with her wedding coming up, she does, too, but then, she suffered a shocking health crisis, living her blind. was the pill responsible? top models. from victoria's secret to all american brands like gap, they're hottest new stars. asian super models. why are they becoming the new face of fashion? and, mystery hum. an eerie sound that emerges after midnight. >> can you hear that? >> in lonely places across the globe. is it something natural or is there an earthly explanation?

>> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden, bill weir and tonight, juju chang in new york city, this is "nightline," october 14th, 2011. >> good evening, i'm juju chang. tonight, we bring you a "nightline" investigation that affects millions of americans. it's one of the most popular pills on the market today, but our reporting suggests that using it can increase the risk of dangerous side effects that may even cause death in young, otherwise healthy patients. we begin with the story of a 234-year-old woman who is convinced that this drug is the reason she nearly died and ended up blind. hers is among the mounting claims that have prompted an fda investigation. here's abc's chief law correspondent, chris cuomo. >> reporter: in 2007, karissa had started a new pediatric nursing job. on chris may day, her boyfriend surprised her at work with a marriage proposal. she wanted to look her best for

the wedding, and says she saw commercials suggesting help with bloating and acne. >> treating the emotional and physical premenstrual symptoms. >> i was yeah, that sounds like a miracle drug. >> it's yaz, and there's no birth control like it. >> reporter: bayer pitched yaz as the birth control of choice for women desperate for relief from severe pms. but two months later, karissa's legs started to ache. she had worked a long shift and didn't think much of it. but by the next evening, she was gasping for air. her fiance called 911. only the way to the hospital, karissa's heart stopped. four minutes, no heartbeat. also known as dead to some people, right? >> yes. >> reporter: karissa had massive blood clots in both lungs. her coma lasted almost two weeks. but the damage will last forever. right now, can you see me? >> no.

>> reporter: can you see anything? >> no. >> reporter: and that's how you woke up? >> yes. >> reporter: the big question -- was yaz the cause of the clotting, the coma and the blindness? all birth control pills come with some risk. 2 to 4 women per 10,000 will suffer blood clots and some will die as a result. yaz generated buzz touting it as the new pms pills in news segments like this one. >> a miracle pill that gives most of the symptoms of pms. >> reporter: sales rocketed to nearly $2 billion a year, making it the company's top-selling drug. internal documents obtained by abc news show the giddy reactions of some executives. "this is outstanding. can we get "good morning america" to do the same segment?" the fda was not amused. >> the fda wants us to correct a few points. >> reporter: they said yaz was not known to be effective for

common pms, just a rare and serious form. the company denied wrongdoing but agreed to spend $20 million on corrective ads. >> yaz is for the treatment of pmdd and moderate acne. not for the treatment of pms and mild acne. >> reporter: yet, millimeters of women have already switched to yaz. bayer cites its own studies to show that yaz is just as safe as other birth control pills. but several studies have put yaz's risk two to three times higher. this doctor authored a study involving a million women. >> the two bayer-sponsored stud dips found no difference in risk while the four independents all found increased risks. >> reporter: she says she sent her stud dips to bayer but didn't respond. >> the studies are not in the best interest of the company. >> reporter: thousands of women are now suing bayer, including karissa. but the company denies any

wrongdoing. citing those lawsuits, bayer refused to be interviewed and instead sent us a statement, saying "yaz is as safe as any other birth control pill when used correctly." so we called to press for answers. why aren't you putting someone in the chair with something as important as this? >> if you have specific questions, may i ask you to send them to me? >> reporter: but we had already sent them detailed questions. but you don't want to just discuss it? >> i'll be in the office monday. >> reporter: and when we repeatedly called back -- no answer from bayer. and no answers for karissa. >> everything that i thought and i worked so hard for just disappeared. >> reporter: you're not a pediatric nurse right now. >> no, i'm not. >> reporter: you don't have the future you thought you were going to have? >> no. >> reporter: you're not engaged anymore.

>> no, i'm not. >> reporter: and you believe it all happened and started with the pill called yaz? >> yes. >> our thanks to chris cuomo for that investigation. the fda is now reopening the case on yaz, conducting a new review of the drug's safety. if you are considering your birth control options, experts say you should, as always, consult your own doctor. just ahead, the rise of the asian super model. is this how runways will look from now on? man: my electric bill was breaking the bank. so to save some money, i trained this team of guinea pigs to row this tiny boat. guinea pig: row...row. they generate electricity, which lets me surf the web all day. guinea pig: row...row. took me 6 months to train each one, 8 months to get the guinea pig: row...row. little chubby one to yell row! guinea pig: row...row. that's kind of strange. guinea pig: row...row. such a simple word... row. anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online.

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or how much that collar can pop. fashion is supposed to start at the cutting edge and go wild from there. but in some represents, the fashion industry can seem downright stojy, like the traditional idea of what a super model looks like. now, that, too, may be changing. here's abc's stephanie sy. ♪ >> reporter: from the top designer shows in new york to ads for the all-american brand gap, a new group of super models is taking center stage. move over, heidi, gisel. make way for rising star liu wen, who was booked more than any model of color during new york's fashion week. liu wen is also the first chinese model to ever walk the victoria's secret runway. a huge coup, since it's usually dominated by blond bombshells. why do you think you were one of the only asian models to ever model for victoria's secret?

>> if every day you eat salad, sometimes you just want to eat a little bit of meat. you know what that means? yeah, because you eat too much something, you just want to try a different feeling. >> reporter: are you the meat in this? >> no, i'm not meat. >> reporter: you're the salad. she was among a group of models featured in "vogue," heralding the rise of the asian model. the photo was stunning. but the headline drew media fire. they said a new crop of asian models from wchina, south korea and japan. that's a little bit like saying, it's 2011 and we finally think that asian women are beautiful. >> reporter: this blogger is cynical about the trend. she says it's driven not by a new appreciation for asian beauty, but by a pure profit model. the boom iing buying power of t chinese consumer. >> china become the number one luxury market any day

now. the fashion industry is starting to take note and starting to put people who represent that market into their pages. >> reporter: in cosmetics alone, the asian market is soon poised to be the world's largest, growing to $85 billion a year. the first one, everyone was notice, but it turned out so beautiful. and that was in "the new york times." >> introducing a major innovation. >> reporter: estee lauder recently jumped on the bandwagon, signing liu wen as its first asian brand ambassador. the company is hoping to tap into a new market of 1.3 billion people. >> estee lauder, it should be celebrated for signing someone like liu wen to be their first asian spokesmodel. that is a big deal a modeling contract is the holy grail for every model. and to have an asian face represent that, a whole 100% chinese-born and bred asian face represent that, that's amazing.

>> reporter: an american brand, an asian face. liu wen, now 23 years old, has come a long way from her small village in china's human province. after winning a modeling contest, she was discovered by french stylist joseph carle. >> she can give so much, so much so, much, with such elegance and she can create an intimacy with the readers, too. >> beautiful, yes. >> reporter: but the barriers still loom large. critics say all asian casting like last fall's cue chour show, was racist it was levelled at "vogue italia" for its so-called all black issue. >> unfortunately it plays into the stereotype that az yabs all look alike. because the models all did look alike. >> reporter: adding assault to

injury, british "vogue" mislabeled liu wen as a different model. >> i think in a way, that feels almost like a fad and a trend versus something that just feels like a melting pot of beauty. >> reporter: liu wen thinks the widening lens of beauty is more than an it bag. she's just enjoying the ride. >> i mean this is very great. i feel the world is smaller and the fashion world is open bigger for any girl. before you have black girl, white girl, now you have kind of yellow-skinned girl so it's a western meets eastern. >> reporter: she says it's only a matter of time before she reaches her next goal -- an american "vogue" cover. for "nightline," i'm stephanie sy in new york. >> let's hear it for the yellow-skinned girls. our thanks to stephanie sy. next up, a decades-old mystery that comes out only at night. we go sleuthing.

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it's cloaked in the same surreal mystery as rumors of alien sightings of memories of a favorite campfire ghost story. but enough people have heard it,

it seems impossible they could all be making it up. our correspondent nick watt knew he just had to find out if the rumors were true. here's what he uncovered. >> the heartbeat itself is very deep. but there's a hum at the top. >> it comes and it goes. no set pattern. >> it's a noise that actually gets into your head. once you heard at this time first time, you pick it up. >> a dull, bassy sound. like an old diesel generator but in the distance. >> vibrate through your body. >> just turned up, yeah. no rhyme, no reason, just -- there. >> reporter: the strange reports reached london. and then we had to investigation. a long drive north, five hours behind the wheel to woodland village, the latest victim of the hum. the pub was closed, so i sat in the milky afternoon sun, perusing the local paper, reading my research. they've heard the hum elsewhere.

many places. auckland, new zealand where the tough to record low frequency was caught on tape. taos, new mexico, van koouchler, canada, hawaii and multiple towns dotted across britain. there's talk of factory noise of gravitational waves generated by high voltage electrical grids. but then why is the hum localized in places like woodland? far from anything? why don't we all hear it? everywhere? pub opened, i grilled some locals. not in your head? >> no. >> reporter: how do you know? >> because i heard it. >> reporter: you might have heard it in your head. >> i think i heard it with me ears. like ufos and everything else. don't believe in them until i see one. >> reporter: have you? >> no. >> grandma heard it, yeah. >> reporter: you thought she was nice? >> yeah. we had the electric people out, they pulled everything up, the

pulls, like plugs and everything and they laugh. >> reporter: they say the hum is only heard at night and it is strongest down the hill. ? is the woman who first reported the woodland hum. >> it was one tone but it was a heartbeat in between. and when the second night game and it was still there, i said to my husband, that noise is terrible. i said, can you hear it? and he said, what noise? he couldn't hear it, but he's partially deaf. >> reporter: you seem level headed. >> i am. >> reporter: i believe it more having spoken to you. >> well, i'm the first one who actually started it off. >> reporter: you find it scary? >> i find it scary because i find things are changing now in the world. >> reporter: we loitered late. nothing. still nothing. and then -- can you hear that?

>> yeah. >> reporter: it's like a hum -- sort of electrical hum. >> i can hear something now. listen. >> reporter: i can definitely -- we pointed and probed until -- >> it's the camera. >> reporter: here, listen. it's your camera! was it? >> yeah. listen. >> reporter: no, it wasn't. >> listen to it right up there. >> reporter: yeah. we thought we heard the hum. we did not hear the hum. but -- >> people who have heard it have heard it. i can't deny what i've actually heard. >> you know, i hear that noise and that noise is there. >> reporter: so, what is the hum? an electric fence? >> too loud for that. >> reporter: wind whistling through abandoned coal mines?

a secret military installation, perhaps? i would make my story better. >> it certainly would. it certainly would. >> reporter: strangers with new waves? has anyone new moved into the village recently? >> not as far as i know. >> reporter: i'm sort of at a loss then. and you sound like you are a bit, as well. >> yeah. baffled. >> reporter: me, too. baffled. a mystery that we left behind at woodland and we drove home, down this increasingly crowded, noisy little island in an increasingly, noisy crowded world. is the hum just the sound of our increasingly jam-packed high-powered planet? a globe al tin that will spread and one day infect us all? i'm nick watt for "nightline" in woodland, england. >> i didn't hear a thing. our thanks to nick watt. but that's our report for tonight. thank you for watching abc news. wee