J&J and Ethicon Blamed For Bowel Perforation Complication

J&J and Ethicon Blamed For Bowel Perforation Complication

Introduction

On January 14, 2019, a woman and her husband filed a product liability lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and its Ethicon subsidiary in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana as the woman suffered painful and debilitating complications after a hernia repair surgery.

In the lawsuit, the couple claimed the hernia mesh manufactured by the company was defectively designed and was unreasonably dangerous. The woman was implanted with Ethicon Proceed Surgical Mesh on January 12, 2018, and just a day later she underwent another surgery to remove the mesh due to severe pain, infection, and bowel perforation. The plaintiffs claimed that the mesh manufacturers failed to provide adequate warnings to them and the doctors about the potential risks of the mesh and failed to conduct any clinical trials or studies to ensure its safety and effectiveness before extensively marketing the device. According to the lawsuit, the layered design of the polypropylene mesh led to bacterial contamination followed by seroma formation.

The Louisiana woman's lawsuit joins an increasing number of Ethicon hernia mesh lawsuits pending in several courts nationwide. The first bellwether trial in the Ethicon Physiomesh Multi-District Litigation (MDL No. 2782; In Re: Ethicon Physiomesh Flexible composite Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation) is slated to begin on December 2, 2019. More than 1,500 Physiomesh lawsuits are overlooked by U.S. District Judge Richard Story in the Northern District of Georgia, which are consolidated for pretrial proceedings.