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Ethicon Media Monitoring 2/19/2019
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'Sue your surgeons': Health minister urges women injured in vaginal mesh scandal to take legal action against medics as well as manufacturers
Feb 18, 2019 | Mail Online
By Vanessa Chalmers
A health minister has urged women who were injured by vaginal mesh to take legal action against medics. -
MSP Neil Findlay calls on mesh firms to ‘do the moral thing’ and compensate victims left in agony after surgery
Feb 17, 2019 | The Sunday Post
By Marion Scott
Manufacturers of surgical mesh implants, which have caused crippling side effects to patients across Scotland, are being called on to compensate victims and pay millions of pounds worth of treatment costs to the NHS. -
Sling Vs. Mesh: What’s the Difference?
Feb 19, 2019 | Periscope News Group
By Christina Morales
Talking about transvaginal mesh (TVM) can be confusing. There are words like “polypropylene,” “mesh migration,” and “pelvic organ prolapse” that can be difficult to understand.
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Feb 18, 2019 | Mail Online
By Vanessa Chalmers
A health minister has urged women who were injured by vaginal mesh to take legal action against medics.
During a Parliamentary debate in the House of Commons, Jackie Doyle-Price said that the conversations women were having with their surgeons were 'utterly inadequate'.
The health minister said doctors had failed to warn patients of the risks, adding there has been a 'lack of transparency' in the UK’s medical devices industry.
Ms Doyle-Price claimed in 2017 that the benefits of vaginal mesh outweighed the risks and refused to suspend its use, blaming the issue on clinical practice rather than the device itself.
Thousands of women around the world are taking legal action against mesh manufacturers, but it is believed to be rare for patients to sue their doctor.
Ms Doyle-Price said: 'I say to those women who have suffered badly at the hands of mesh treatment that there are clear medical criteria relating to that product and, if they have any complaint about the treatment they have received, they should be pursuing claims for clinical negligence against their practitioners.'
She added: 'It is becoming clear that mesh was deployed far too insensibly—far too many women were given this treatment, often at comparatively young ages, given that this was going to stay in their body for a long time,' the British Medical Journal reported.
Vaginal mesh, made of brittle plastic that can curl, twist and cut through tissue, was created to treat incontinence in women, and was also used for women with pelvic organ prolapse.
But it has been branded the 'biggest medical scandal since thalidomide' after thousands of women around the world were maimed by the controversial implants.
Injuries have reportedly left women on the brink of suicide, unable to work and reliant on wheelchairs.
Speaking in a debate about medical devices last Tuesday, Ms Doyle-Price said commercial interests had been prioritised over patient safety.
She said: 'In the past regulation has focused excessively on what is in the commercial interests of businesses to maintain competition, rather than having patient safety at its heart.
'There has been a historic lack of transparency in the current system. It has not always been easy for patients to investigate and find more data about the things being put in their bodies.'
Ms Doyle-Price previously said she had been 'horrified' to hear that women had been given implants without being made aware of the risks.
But she added: 'The issue is not the product, but clinical practice. That's what's going wrong.'
Kath Sansom, founder of Sling The Mesh – a 6,800-strong campaign group, told Med-Tech Innovation News that many women are still being told that 'mesh is not to blame'.
Campaigners have tirelessly fought for years to get officials to put an end to vaginal mesh, with the most common implant, called transvaginal tape (or TVT) becoming widely used across Europe and the US since the early 2000s.
A recent BMJ investigation reported there was scant evidence in favour of mesh despite its rapid uptake, and widespread conflicts of interests among surgeons and doctors.
And an NHS audit delving into the effects of mesh, released in April 2018, shone a light onto the true scale of disaster caused by vaginal mesh.
The likelihood of a woman suffering complications from mesh were shown to be around the 45 per cent mark.
But the NHS reportedly claimed the risk was no more than three per cent.
Across the world, mesh manufacturers such as Johnson & Johnson face claims for compensation from women saying they knew nothing about complications.
In a victory for campaigners, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) in 2017 ruled against the use of vaginal mesh as a treatment for pelvic organ collapse.
Following this, the Government suspended the use of some mesh procedures in England until certain conditions are met.
And Nice announced that surgical interventions using surgical mesh or tape should only be considered when non-surgical options have failed or are not possible.
Owen Smith, MP and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Surgical Mesh Implants, called for the UK government to follow Australia's example and issue a national apology to women damaged by pelvic mesh implants.
All forms of pelvic mesh are already banned in New Zealand after a landmark move in December, and a similar move against use in the treatment of vaginal mesh for prolapse has been made in Australia.
Mr Smith also called for radical reform of the regulatory system for medical devices in the UK in the light of recent scandals involving surgical mesh, defective pacemakers, faulty artificial hips, and PIP breast implants.
An investigation found that UK regulators received 62,000 ‘adverse incident’ reports between 2015 and 2018 linked to components such as pacemakers, artificial hips, breast implants and contraceptives.
A third of the incidents had serious repercussions for the patient, and 1,004 resulted in death.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6717793/Health-minister-urges-women-injured-vaginal-mesh-scandal-legal-action.html
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Feb 17, 2019 | The Sunday Post
By Marion Scott
Manufacturers of surgical mesh implants, which have caused crippling side effects to patients across Scotland, are being called on to compensate victims and pay millions of pounds worth of treatment costs to the NHS.
MSP Neil Findlay has written directly to one of Scotland’s biggest suppliers, Johnson & Johnson, pointing out that as the firm are offering pay-outs to victims given defective hip implants but not to those scarred by mesh operations. He hopes other firms will also pay out.
He said: “Mesh payments in the US for various manufacturers are now reaching £10 billion, so instead of dragging women who are already ill and struggling with devastating injuries through the costly and combative court system here in the UK, I’m asking them to do the moral thing.
“It would ensure injured women were not forced to endure further stress and anxiety in what has become the biggest medical scandal of modern times.”
Victims like Elaine Holmes, 50, from Newton Mearns, were left crippled following a mesh op. Mr Findlay’s comments come in the same week the government finally conceded patients suffered “debilitating consequences” over poor regulation of medical devices such as mesh, hip implants, heart valves and breast implants.
UK Health and Social Care Minister Jackie Doyle-Price admitted last week commercial interests had been prioritised over patient safety, and doctors had failed to warn about risks.
Johnson & Johnson did not respond, but said in the past: “Surgery with mesh is backed by years of clinical research, has undergone rigorous regulatory reviews and has been the preferred option for millions of women seeking to improve their quality of life.”
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/msp-neil-findlay-calls-on-mesh-firms-to-do-the-moral-thing-and-compensate-victims-left-in-agony-after-surgerymsp-neil-findlay-calls-on-mesh-firms-to-do-the-moral-thing-and-pay-victims-left-in-agon/
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Sling Vs. Mesh: What’s the Difference?
Feb 19, 2019 | Periscope News Group
By Christina Morales
Talking about transvaginal mesh (TVM) can be confusing. There are words like “polypropylene,” “mesh migration,” and “pelvic organ prolapse” that can be difficult to understand. Additionally, sometimes words seem interchangeable like “sling” and “mesh.” Here are a few things that you need to know if you have or are thinking about having a TVM implant.
Slings vs. Mesh
First of all, transvaginal mesh – commonly abbreviated to TVM – covers both slings and mesh. TVM is usually made out of a plastic called polypropylene. It looks somewhat like a window screen and the plastic itself is many times used to make fishing line.
Slings are mainly used for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and are commonly referred to as “tapes.” This is because the mesh is cut into a long, thin strip much like a piece of scotch tape. SUI occurs usually in women who have given birth and in women who are 44 years old and older. SUI is when a woman laughs, coughs, or sneezes and then experiences urine leakage. The sling supports the tube that urine passes through (called the urethra) and the neck of your bladder (where your bladder connects to your urethra) to help prevent leaks.
There are also two types of slings: pubovaginal and suburethral. A pubovaginal sling has a minimally invasive surgery involving a small vaginal incision where the sling is placed under the urethra to support the organ. A suburethral sling sits around the urethra and is actually attached to the abdominal wall. This is a more invasive procedure and requires a couple of days in the hospital following the surgery.
Now let’s talk about mesh which is primarily used for pelvic organ prolapse (POP). POP is when some of the vaginal walls are weakened and then the bladder, rectum, small bowel and/or uterus sag near or in the vaginal opening. As you can imagine, it’s going to take a bit more than a skinny tape-like device to hold all these organs back where they belong. Mesh can be used to support these organs like a hammock.Mesh Complications
Slings and mesh sound great, right? I mean, who wants to leak pee or have their organs protruding from their vagina? However, tens of thousands of complications have been reported among TVM patients including mesh erosion (when the mesh breaks apart), migration (when the mesh moves around in the body), tissue and organ damage (which happens when the sharp edges slice surrounding areas), and dyspareunia (where the mesh lodges in the vagina and causes painful sex). There are other procedures and devices – such as colporrhaphy and pessaries – that don’t have these harmful lasting adverse effects. When you think about it, women have been having babies and have been aging for thousands of years without using harmful TVM. Why is this dangerous device being put in women at all?!
TVM is truly a crime against women. This defective plastic breaks, slices, and creates irreparable damage causing women to no longer be able to work or function in daily tasks due to the excruciating pain. It also harms relationships because of the physical and mental stress it imposes and due to the lack of physical intimacy resulting from broken mesh (if it moves into the vagina, the sharp edges can slice the penis). These women are suffering, embarrassed, angry, and have lost so much… all so that big pharmaceutical companies can make a lot of money.
If you had complications that needed mesh removal, please contact Periscope Group today. We would love to hear your story and we want to help you if we can. TVM is a dangerous product that was never fully tested and has ruined tens of thousands of women’s lives around the world. It’s time that your voice is heard!
https://www.periscopegroup.com/transvaginal-mesh/sling-versus-mesh
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