On February 28th, after over two weeks of deliberation, a New Jersey jury awarded $7.76 million in punitive damages to a plaintiff who allegedly sustained injuries as a result of a transvaginal mesh product manufactured by J&J’s subsidiary Ethicon.
The plaintiff’s attorneys alleged that J&J was willful and reckless in failing to properly warn surgeons and potential users of the dangerous risks associated with the product. J&J and Ethicon advertised that the Prolift posed “rare and small risks” of complications or injury; however, according to the suit, J&J had knowledge of the
high level of risks associated with the products.
The jury, in awarding the punitive damages, determined that J&J deliberately misled Gross and doctors about the safety of the product.
This award comes on the heels of an award of $3.35 million in compensatory damages for Gross for losses to both her and her husband, including extensive medical bills stemming from 18 corrective surgeries to repair damage allegedly caused by the Prolift device. The device and its failure left Gross in constant pain and prevented her from returning to her job as a nurse, according to the suit.
J&J began marketing Prolift for sale in 2005, two years before the FDA even learned about the device. The FDA refuted J&J’s argument that additional testing was not required to market the device because it was very similar to another J&J mesh product. The company advertised and sold the product for three years before it obtained appropriate FDA clearance, according to reports.
A transvaginal mesh is used to support a woman’s pelvic muscles after giving birth to help treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence. The FDA has received over 4000 complaints regarding transvaginal mesh products, including partial erosion of the mesh. Other problems reported by mesh recipients include pain, infection, organ perforation, painful sexual intercourse, and the reoccurrence of pelvic organ prolapse – the condition device was designed to treat. In 2011, the FDA announced a “five-fold” increase in “vaginal mesh incidents” between 2008 and 2011 and published an updated communication informing the public that serious complications associated with transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse with a mesh are not rare.
This verdict is the first of 4,000 transvaginal mesh cases, including 1,800 in New Jersey, against J&J for their Prolift product. If you or a loved one has suffered an injury from a transvaginal mesh device, visit
http://www.classaction.org/transvaginal-mesh.html to learn more about the vaginal mesh lawsuits and to receive a free case review.
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