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Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuit | Get the Right Lawyer

Transvaginal mesh implants have recently been linked to thousands of severe complications including mesh erosion, infections, and perforation of the bowel, bladder and blood vessels.
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Pelvic Mesh Manufacturers: Our law firm is currently accepting new transvaginal mesh claims against the following manufacturers: Johnson & Johnson, Bard, American Medical Systems or AMS, and Boston Scientific.  See below “Products & Manufacturer List” for a list of the aforementioned manufacturers brand name pelvic mesh.

Why You Should Choose Schmidt & Clark, LLP

Our Experience – Defective Medical Device Litigation

“Our firm has significant experience in the area of defective devices and pelvic mesh related injuries.”

 

In addition to our national representation of numerous consumers injured by other forms of defective pelvic mesh, our attorneys are actively involved in the investigation regarding the use of transvaginal mesh devices.

We are able to draw upon the pool of experience gained in other pelvic mesh and products liability litigation to appropriately investigate, evaluate, and pursue potential mesh injury claims.

What’s the Problem with Surgical Mesh?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received thousands of reports from multiple surgical mesh manufacturers of complications associated with their pelvic mesh used to repair pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in vaginal tissue.

These surgical mesh devices are usually placed transvaginally utilizing tools for minimally invasive placement.

The most frequent complications included erosion through vaginal walls, infection, chronic pain, urinary problems, and the recurrence of pelvic organ prolapse.

There were also reports of bowel, bladder, and organ perforation during insertion. In some cases, vaginal scarring and erosion led to a significant decrease in patient quality of life due to discomfort and pain, including dyspareunia.

Treatment of the various types of complications included additional surgical procedures (some of them to remove the pelvic mesh in vaginal tissue), IV therapy, blood transfusions, and drainage of hematomas or abscesses.

Specific characteristics of patients at increased risk for complications have not been determined.

Contributing factors may include the overall health of the patient, the pelvic mesh material, the size and shape of the pelvic mesh, the surgical technique used, concomitant procedures undertaken (e.g. hysterectomy), and possibly estrogen status.

Repair Pelvic Organ Prolapse

Pelvic Mesh Complications

  • erosion through vaginal epithelium
  • infection
  • pain, including dyspareunia
  • urinary problems
  • recurrence of pelvic organs prolapse
  • bowel, blood vessel, and bladder perforation
  • excessive bleeding
  • vaginal scarring
  • surgery to treat urinary incontinence
  • other complications

Vaginal Mesh Cases

Vaginal Mesh Recalls

To date, there has been at least 3 recalls for surgical mesh devices. Back in 1999, Boston Scientific pulled its ProteGen brand pelvic mesh off the market amid safety concerns.

The ProteGen was a groundbreaking female pelvic medicine device due to the fact that it was not only the first surgical mesh designed exclusively for transvaginal applications, but it also paved the way for a huge number of other shoddy products to reach the U.S. market.

Within a year of the ProteGen gaining approval from the FDA, several other major manufacturers copied the design and released pelvic mesh of their own.

Due to the similarities between these devices and the ProteGen, all of them were rushed to market via the FDA’s controversial 510(k) clearance loophole, which approves products without clinical testing. And while the ProteGen was recalled after 3 years on the market, the pelvic mesh devices created in its image have yet to be recalled.

Then in June 2012, Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon division recalled the following brands of mesh after more than 1,000 transvaginal mesh lawsuits had been filed against the manufacturer:

  • Gynecare Prolift Kit
  • Gynecare Prolift + M Kit
  • Gynecare TVT Secure
  • Gynecare Prosima Pelvic Floor Repair System Kit

A month after the J&J Gynecare recall, C.R. Bard stopped selling its Avaulta Plus line of vaginal mesh after a California jury awarded a patient $5.5 million after being injured by one of the devices.Transvaginal Placement

J&J to Pay $344 Million Over Transvaginal Mesh Products Marketing

Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $344 million for misrepresenting the serious risks of pelvic mesh implants to consumers in California, according to Bloomberg [1].

The suit accused J&J and its Ethicon unit of “deceptively marketing their pelvic mesh products” for years without fully disclosing the risks of the devices, misleading users in violation of state consumer-protection laws.

California is the first of the states that sued J&J to get its case to trial. Officials in Washington a year earlier agreed to a $10 million settlement the day before the trial was to begin.

Stress Urinary Incontinence Victim Awarded $41 Million in Philadelphia Lawsuit Against J&J Ethicon

Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon unit has been slammed with a $41 million penalty in a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed severe complications.

The Philadelphia jury ruled that Ethicon’s Gynemesh, Prolift and TVT-O pelvic meshes were defectively designed, and that the company was negligent in manufacturing the devices, according to Law360.

Judge Affirms $13.7 Million Transvaginal Mesh Implant Award to Victim of Pelvic Organ Prolapse

The Philadelphia judge presiding over a pelvic mesh lawsuit that resulted in a $13.7 million judgment affirmed the award on appeal. The lawsuit was filed by Plaintiff Sharon Carlino, who alleged Ethicon’s bladder sling failed because it was negligently designed, and that its failure caused her to suffer permanent pain during sex (dyspareunia) and vaginal prolapse, which required transvaginal repair.

Delaware Woman Awarded $100M in Vaginal Mesh Lawsuit

A jury has ordered transvaginal mesh manufacturers Boston Scientific to pay a record $100 million to a Delaware woman who was left permanently injured after being implanted with a bladder sling.

Newark resident Deborah Barba was awarded $25 million in compensatory and $75 million in punitive damages yesterday following a 2-week trial in Superior Court in Wilmington. The pelvic mesh verdict is the largest ever against Boston Scientific over its mesh.

Ethicon Mesh Bellwether Trial Delayed

Product liability lawsuits involving mesh slings manufactured by Ethicon Inc. have been delayed, after the judge presiding over the multidistrict litigation (MDL) postponed the next pending bellwether trial until the new year.

No reason was given for the delay, but the judge also issued a second order the same day requesting a joint status conference for all litigation involving mesh products on Jan. 29, 2015.

Medical Malpractice

Mesh Products & Manufacturer List

Johnson & Johnson

  • Ethicon TVT
  • Gynecare TVT
  • Gynemesh PS
  • Prolene Polypropylene Mesh Patch
  • Secur

Bard

  • Avaulta Plus™ BioSynthetic Support System
  • Avaulta Solo™ Synthetic Support System
  • Faslata® Allograft
  • Pelvicol® Tissue
  • PelviSoft® Biomesh
  • Pelvitex™ Polypropylene Mesh

American Medical Systems or AMS

  • SPARC®

Boston Scientific

  • Advantage™ Sling System
  • Obtryx® Curved Single
  • Obtryx® Mesh Sling
  • Prefyx Mid U™ Mesh Sling System
  • Prefyx PPS™ System

Legal Advice

Transvaginal Mesh Litigation

As of Jan. 2015, more than 60,000 mesh lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts throughout the U.S. Among them:

  • Approximately 10,000 cases involving C.R. Bard;
  • Approximately 18,000 cases involving American Medical Systems;
  • Approximately 14,000 cases involving Boston Scientific;
  • Approximately 22,000 cases involving Ethicon;
  • Approximately 1,700 cases involving Coloplast;
  • Approximately 300 cases involving Cook Medical, and
  • Approximately 100 cases involving Neomedic.

In 2014, Endo International Plc, owner of AMS, agreed to pay about $1.3 billion to resolve medical malpractice lawsuits.

In most cases, these settlements involve women who have undergone 1 reconstructive surgery or no revisions to repair injuries allegedly caused by the mesh. Women who have undergone repair surgery have not been included in the settlements.

Covidien Settles 11,000 Mesh Lawsuits

Medtronic’s Covidien unit has agreed to settle over 11,000 lawsuits related to its mesh implants after a judge urged companies facing litigation to resolve medical bills with plaintiffs rather than taking them to trial, according to Reuters.

NEJM Study Finds Mesh Complication Risk High

A new study has confirmed prior research indicating that the use of mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse carries the risk of serious complications including bladder perforation and repair surgery.

These findings come just months after a number of doctors publicly expressed concerns about the risks associated with mesh surgery.

According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), mesh devices are more effective at treating pelvic organ prolapse (POP) than conventional surgical procedures, but carry the risk of developing a number of extremely serious complications after repair surgery.

The study involved 389 women being treated for POP. 200 were implanted with vaginal mesh devices and 189 were treated with colporrhaphy, a more traditional form of vaginal wall repair that involves surgical intervention of a defect in the wall of the vagina.

Of these, approximately 3.5% of women implanted with surgical mesh suffered from complications arising after the surgery, compared to only about 0.5% of the women who received colporrhaphy.

The rate of SUI was more than 12% for women who received a mesh device compared with only 6.3% for a colporrhaphy. The study also found that 3.2% of the women who received the mesh required revision surgery to correct problems with the device.

According to the study’s authors, “As compared with anterior colporrhaphy, use of a standardized, trocar-guided mesh kit for cystocele repair resulted in higher short-term rates of successful treatment but also in higher rates of surgical complications and postoperative adverse events.”

These new findings confirm what many in the medical community have suspected for some time. In November 2010, marketing materials from Dr. Anne M. Weber of Pennsylvania published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology suggested that there is a lack of specific scientific information on the health risks of vaginal mesh implants.

Weber told the journal that the lack of information made it impossible for patients to give informed consent and suggested all vaginal mesh surgery be considered experimental.

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Have you or a loved one suffered severe pain or injury from a defective medical device?

Study Investigates Mesh Complications After POP Repair

According to the results of a similar outcome presented at the 28th annual European Association of Urology Congress, age and other risk factors seem to play a large part in contributing to a woman’s risk of developing complications following surgery for vaginal prolapse.

Younger women, those with less severe cases of POP, and those who underwent concomitant hysterectomies were more likely to develop complications than women without these risk factors.

The new research comes as thousands of women around the country are filing transvaginal mesh lawsuits, alleging that the products are dangerous and inherently defective, and carry a risk of severe and debilitating health problems.

The new study, which was conducted by Russian scientists, involved a cohort of 677 test subjects treated at six different medical centers who underwent mesh repair for POP from 2006 to 2010. Of the cohort, 152 women (17.3%) were found to have intra-operative, early postoperative and mesh-related complications.

Specifically, mesh complications included:

  • Significant pelvic hematomas (5.5%)
  • Vaginal hematomas (5.5%)
  • Perineal hematomas (2.5%)
  • Bleeding during surgery and losing over 500 cc of blood (2.2%)
  • Bladder injury (1.6%)
  • Rectal damage (0.7%)

There were also two cases of urethral injury and one case of urethral trauma reported in the test subjects.

Complications linked directly to mesh placement for POP repair included:

  • 32 incidents of erosion (4.8%)
  • Dyspareunia and pain (2.4%)

Additionally, the study participants reported a variety of other transvaginal mesh complications including:

  • protrusion into the bladder
  • mesh shrinkage
  • pelvic abscess
  • development of fistulas

Food and Drug Administration

Is the FDA’s 510(k) Approval Process a Giant Loophole?

Since 1976, all medical devices must be approved by the FDA before they can be legally marketed to the public. It is the fond belief that FDA approval is a ringing endorsement of a product’s safety, a guarantee that the device has been tested and re-tested by professionals. Unfortunately, this belief is far from accurate.

The FDA’s 510(K) approval process requires little safety information and only some information concerning the products’ efficacy. Once approved, the FDA may or may not require additional studies to be performed.

Unfortunately, adverse event reporting for devices has never been very good. In fact, most medical devices currently on the market have not been tested rigorously enough to determine the potential for harmful or fatal events.

According to a recent report published in the British Medical Journal, running large scale clinical trials before the FDA approves everything is impractical, which makes the post-marketing monitoring even more important.

Post-approval performance is especially vital for devices because they are less likely than dangerous drugs to be supported by clinical studies before being placed on the market. According to the report, these studies are not conducted or are “conducted so poorly as to be meaningless.”

Medical Bills

Additional Information:

  • FDA Public Health Notification: Serious Complications Associated with Placement of Surgical Mesh in Repair of Pelvic Organ Prolapse [2]
  • New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Study on Transvaginal Mesh Complications: A new study published in the NEJM has confirmed that the use of surgical mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse (POP) carries the risk of serious side effects including bladder perforation and pelvic hemorrhaging.
  • Transvaginal Mesh FDA Warning: The FDA has issued an updated safety communication warning that surgical placement of transvaginal mesh to repair POP may expose patients to a greater risk of side effects than other treatment options.
  • Public Citizen Calls on FDA to Recall Vaginal Mesh: In response to a high number of reports linking vaginal mesh to erosion, pain and bleeding, the watchdog group Public Citizen has called on the FDA to recall the controversial devices.

Pelvic Organ Prolapse

 

Related: Ethicon Physiomesh Hernia Patch Lawsuit

See all the defective medical devices lawsuits we’ve taken on.

Get a Free Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuit Evaluation With Our Lawyers

The Medical Device & Products Liability Litigation Group at our law firm is an experienced team of trial lawyers that focus exclusively on the representation of plaintiffs in transvaginal mesh and vaginal mesh lawsuits. Our personal injury attorneys are handling individual litigation nationwide and currently accepting new transvaginal mesh product complication cases in all 50 states.

If you or a loved one have been injured or suspect that you may have complications directly linked to the placement of a transvaginal mesh implant, you should contact us immediately. You may be entitled to obtain compensation for your injuries and punitive damages and we can help.

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