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Ethicon Media Monitoring 12/21/2017
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Pelvic Mesh Defendant Wants to Expedite Appeal After Losing Jurisdiction Dispute
Dec 20, 2017 | The Legal Intelligencer
By Max Mitchell
The medical device company that recently lost its bid to significantly shrink the pelvic mesh mass tort in Philadelphia wants to expedite its appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. -
Borehamwood mum Lisa Hunter has endured 'chronic pain' for years because of the TVT mesh
Dec 21, 2017 | Borehamwood Times
By Nathan Louis
A woman who has endured chronic pain after having a pelvic mesh fitted after undergoing a hernia operation has welcomed a decision by New Zealand to ban the implants. -
Pelvic mesh death horrifies consumer health groups campaigning for total mesh ban
Dec 21, 2017 | Newcastle Herald
By Joanne McCarthy
ALISON Blake took her own life in June 2015 only two weeks after a doctor told her nothing could be done to ease her pain or address the devastating consequences of pelvic mesh device surgery. -
Australian woman commits suicide after surgical mesh nightmare
Dec 21, 2017 | Newshub
The family of a woman who killed herself due to pain caused by surgical mesh has gone public with their heartbreaking story of her last days.
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Pelvic Mesh Defendant Wants to Expedite Appeal After Losing Jurisdiction Dispute
Dec 20, 2017 | The Legal Intelligencer
By Max Mitchell
The medical device company that recently lost its bid to significantly shrink the pelvic mesh mass tort in Philadelphia wants to expedite its appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
The medical device company that recently lost its bid to significantly shrink the pelvic mesh mass tort in Philadelphia wants to expedite its appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
Ethicon filed a motion recently asking Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Arnold New to amend an order he issued in early December that largely rejected the company’s efforts to toss more than 100 cases from Philadelphia’s pelvic mesh litigation. New’s ruling tossed only one case from the nearly 120-case mass tort program.
Ethicon’s motion, filed Dec. 15, specifically asked New to add language indicating that his Dec. 4 ruling addressed a significant jurisdictional issue in the case.
“There can be no dispute that the court’s Dec. 4, 2017, order, which followed multiple rounds of briefing and oral argument, presented a substantial issue of jurisdiction,” the motion, filed by Drinker Biddle & Reath attorney Melissa Merk, said. “The defendants respectfully request that the court amend its Dec. 4, 2017, order to state that a substantial issue of jurisdiction was presented so that an immediate appeal may be taken.”
New’s ruling was one of the first instances where a Philadelphia judge applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent high-profile pronouncement in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California. That ruling made clear that out-of-state plaintiffs can’t sue companies where the defendants aren’t considered to be “at home,” or haven’t conducted business directly linked to the claimed injury.
While some have referred to it as a “game-changing” decision for state-court mass tort programs, exactly how the decision will play out as state courts begin to implement it remains to be seen. So far the decision has resulted in only four cases being tossed from Philadelphia, which has long been regarded as a hub for pharmaceutical litigation and has recently produced several multimillion-dollar verdicts for plaintiffs in consolidated litigations, including pelvic mesh.
The jurisdictional dispute in the mesh litigation focused on the relationship between Ethicon and Bucks County biomaterials supplier Secant, which manufactured the mesh used in all of Ethicon’s products except for the Prolift +M. The type of mesh used in that product was manufactured by a non-Pennsylvania company.
Plaintiffs have argued that, given Secant’s role in making the product, venue was proper in Pennsylvania, even though Ethicon, which is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is based in New Jersey.
Ethicon, however, downplayed its relationship with Secant, and fought unsuccessfully to bar the plaintiffs from deposing a former executive about the materials the company used in its mesh products.
According to the plaintiffs, that employee’s testimony confirmed that, aside from the Prolift +M product, Secant produced 100 percent of the mesh used in all of Ethicon’s other mesh products.
In an emailed statement, Kline & Specter attorney Shanin Specter, who is a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the mass tort, said, “Johnson & Johnson didn’t try to appeal the first time they lost their jurisdictional challenge in this litigation. But now that they’ve lost all their cases, owe a lot of badly injured women a lot of money and are facing more badly injured women in more cases, they want to toss sand in the gears of justice. It won’t work.”
A spokeswoman for J&J declined to comment.
https://www.law.com/thelegalintelligencer/sites/thelegalintelligencer/2017/12/20/pelvic-mesh-defendant-wants-to-expedite-appeal-after-losing-jurisdiction-dispute/
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Borehamwood mum Lisa Hunter has endured 'chronic pain' for years because of the TVT mesh
Dec 21, 2017 | Borehamwood Times
By Nathan Louis
A woman who has endured chronic pain after having a pelvic mesh fitted after undergoing a hernia operation has welcomed a decision by New Zealand to ban the implants.
Earlier this week, New Zealand took the decision to ban the product, which is used to repair pelvic organ prolapse, because the risks of the mesh “far outweighed the benefits for treatment of pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence”.
Lisa Hunter, from Borehamwood, has suffered since 2004 and been through countless hospital appointments after she was fitted with the mesh.
After six years, she decided to undergo surgery to ease the pain. However it didn’t work and in January this year, she decided to have a transvaginal tape fitted (TVT).
But it is these TVT’s which have started to cause women agony. She is urging woman to avoid having the mesh, which is made out of polypropylene plastic, so that they don’t go through the same pain that she has.
“I wake up every day not knowing how to feel. I have suffered in agony for so long. If one woman who’s considering a TVT sees this and now thinks better, that’s all I want.
“I should have done more research prior to my operation.”
Ms Hunter is now exploring options to have the hernia mesh and TVT removed.
Calls have been made for the UK to follow New Zealand’s lead in banning the product, with a campaign led by MP Owen Smith alongside a plea from campaign group 'Sling the Mesh'
He said: “This is a hugely significant step forward in the campaign against mesh.
“That is precisely what we have been calling for here in the UK and we now need our ministers, regulatory authorities and medical professions to show similar leadership and ban mesh in the UK.
“Women in the UK need to see similar protections put in place to prevent any more being injured by mesh,” he added.
http://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/news/15784617.Mum__welcomes__mesh_implant_ban_amid_calls_to_bring_it_to_the_UK/
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Pelvic mesh death horrifies consumer health groups campaigning for total mesh ban
Dec 21, 2017 | Newcastle Herald
By Joanne McCarthy
ALISON Blake took her own life in June 2015 only two weeks after a doctor told her nothing could be done to ease her pain or address the devastating consequences of pelvic mesh device surgery.
“I cannot bear the thought of leaving you but the emotional torment and physical pain I’m going through are just too much,” Mrs Blake, 64, said in a final letter to her only child, Leesa Tolhurst.
“I simply cannot bear to be lying on a couch for months on end and to have to rely on catheters, enemas, Temazepam, pain killers and be a burden to my family and friends.”
Mrs Tolhurst sobbed this week as she remembered the turning point for her mother.
“She’d gone to the doctor hoping that perhaps something could be done. She was hysterical when she came here and said there was nothing left. I just tried to comfort her. I remember her as she drove away from my house, there was just a look in her eyes,” Mrs Tolhurst said.
Mrs Blake, a primary school teacher, was implanted with a prolapse pelvic mesh device in October, 2013 and suffered immediate complications, including severe and consistent pain. Her surgeon tried to remove the mesh six weeks later. She had further unsuccessful surgery to treat the complications in May and July, 2014. By November, 2014, the pelvic mesh device was one of the first in the world to be removed from the market because of lack of evidence it was safe and effective to use.
They robbed her of dignity.Leesa Tolhurst about her mother, Alison Blake.
In 2009 the then NSW Medical Board described her surgeon’s complaint history as “extensive”.
In the final 16 months of her life Mrs Blake was unable to urinate without a catheter.
“She had to lay on the ground to use the catheter and she had to do that about every two hours,” Mrs Tolhurst, of Caloundra in Queensland. said.
Mrs Blake’s sister Heather Paton remembers standing in a Sydney private hospital room when Mrs Blake told her: “I have to catheterise myself for the rest of my life”.
“The nurses were trying to show her how to do it and she was saying ‘But I can’t do this, I can’t do this’,” Mrs Paton said.
“She was desperate. She couldn’t see how she could do what they told her she had to do for the rest of her life. It was no life. She was sent home that way.
“She couldn’t attend our father’s funeral because there were no facilities at the crematorium to lay down and do what she had to do. Her life was reduced to places within two hours of her home, and only where she could lay down to catheterise herself.”
Victorian consumer health advocate Danny Vadasz said he was horrified by Mrs Blake’s death. This was despite many of the more than 2000 women who responded to a pelvic mesh survey for a Senate inquiry saying they had felt suicidal because of permanent and severe pelvic mesh injuries, including intractable pain.
Mr Vadasz was scathing of doctors, doctors’ groups and health regulators who defended pelvic mesh surgery by saying thousands of women benefited, despite acknowledging the severe consequences of failed mesh surgery.
“That argument says there is some kind of acceptable collateral damage in terms of women’s lives, but that can never be accepted when so many women are left desperate. In the case of Alison Blake, to the point of suicide,” Mr Vadasz said.
In November Australia’s medical device regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, announced a targeted ban of a final group of prolapse mesh devices implanted through the vagina, along with a group of problematic mesh slings to treat incontinence.
The TGA has removed 45 devices from the Australian market – with multiple variants – since a review in 2013, prompted by the global pelvic mesh scandal. Consumer health and women’s groups across the country have called for a total ban on all pelvic mesh devices, including “gold standard” stress incontinence mesh slings, because of severe injuries to some women.
Mrs Tolhurst described her mother as “beautiful in every way and such a dignified lady”.
“They robbed her of dignity,” she said.
Mrs Tolhurst said she spent as much time as possible with her mother in the final two weeks of her life because of her fears.
“The week before she died I went over and she had paperwork on her desk. She said to me ‘If anything happens to me everything you need is here’.
“I just held her. I said ‘Mum, you’re going to be ok. We’re going to get through this’, but I was terrified.
“She died a week later. She just decided that was her last day.”
Mrs Tolhurst and Mrs Paton agreed to speak about Mrs Blake’s death because they believe many other Australian women are living desperate lives because of pelvic mesh surgery.
“She would want this to be exposed,” Mrs Tolhurst said.
“I love her and I’ll miss her for the rest of my life but I understand. I couldn’t live like that either. No one should have to live like that.”
People needing support for chronic pain can seek help at Chronic Pain Australia, www.chronicpainaustralia.org.au, Painaustralia, www.painaustralia.org.au or Australian Pain Management Association (APMA) at www.painmanagement.org.au
The Hunter Integrated Pain Service provides support at John Hunter Hospital, www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/pain.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5133881/womans-death-after-pelvic-mesh-complications-the-pain-is-just-too-much/
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Australian woman commits suicide after surgical mesh nightmare
Dec 21, 2017 | Newshub
The family of a woman who killed herself due to pain caused by surgical mesh has gone public with their heartbreaking story of her last days.
Alison Blake committed suicide in January 2015 two weeks after being told nothing more that could be done to help her after mesh surgery left her in constant pain, the Newcastle Herald reports.
She had been implanted with a prolapse pelvic mesh device in October 2013. Immediately afterward, she suffered complications and was forced to have multiple surgeries, all of which were unsuccessful.
Ms Blake was forced to self-catheterise every two hours and rely on painkillers to get through the day.
As part of the self-catheterising process she had to lie down, meaning she was restricted to traveling within two hours of her home or to somewhere she could lie down.
"She couldn't attend our father's funeral because there were no facilities at the crematorium to lay down and do what she had to do," her sister Heather Paton told the Newcastle Herald.
Her daughter Leesa Tolhurst remembers the final days of Ms Blake's life as terrifying after she discovered nothing could be done about the pain.
"I just tried to comfort her. I remember her as she drove away from my house, there was just a look in her eyes," she told the Newcastle Herald.
Her family members agreed to speak to media in order to bring attention to women currently living through the pain of pelvic mesh surgery. Australia has just decided to partially ban the mesh.
"I love her, and I'll miss her for the rest of my life, but I understand. I couldn't live like that either. No one should have to live like that," Ms Tolhurst said.
In New Zealand, Medsafe will be rolling out a ban on surgical mesh for pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence in 2018.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/health/2017/12/australian-woman-commits-suicide-after-surgical-mesh-nightmare.html
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