Lawsuits Allege Vaginal Mesh Causes Serious Damage

Vaginal mesh, also known as transvaginal mesh, is used in vaginal sling and bladder sling implants to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP). In prolapse, organs of the pelvis fall out of place. This can be caused by childbirth, weakened pelvic muscles, and menopause. These medical devices are intended to help hold organs in place to treat and prevent pelvic organ prolapse. However, a number of serious side effects have emerged, prompting injury lawsuits against the device manufacturers.

Reported Side Effects

Patients implanted with vaginal mesh have suffered from a wide variety of symptoms. These include problems stemming from mesh erosion, and the synthetic mesh damaging many of the organs it was intended to protect. In some cases, vaginal mesh may have perforated or punctured organs like the bladder, bowel and vagina.

Some of the reported symptoms of a failed vaginal sling implant are:

• Urinary problems
• Pain during sex
• Vaginal scarring
• Rectal scarring
• Mesh erosion
• Mesh contraction
• Perforation of pelvic organs

Multiple surgeries are often required to remove the mesh. And in some cases, surgeons are unable to remove all of the transvaginal mesh.

Mounting Evidence of Serious Side Effects

The U.S. Food and Drug administration has received over 3,000 complaints of serious compilations from patients who suffered problems after receiving a vaginal mesh implant from 2008 and 2010.

Additionally, the 28th Annual European Association of Urology Congress included new research on the side effects of vaginal mesh implants. Research presented by a medical team from the Russian Federation found more than 22 percent of patients who received a synthetic mesh implant suffered from serious complications after the procedure.

In light of mounting evidence, the FDA issued a warning to physicians and the general public regarding these medical products. In July of 2011, the warning went out. Shortly after that, Ethicon, a division of medical supply company Johnson and Johnson, pulled a number of its vaginal mesh implant products from the market. These products included:

• Gynecare Prolift
• Gynecare TVT Secur System
• Gynecare Prosima
• Gynecare Prolift + M

Vaginal Mesh Lawsuits

Since problems with vaginal mesh implants have been reported by thousands of women, numerous lawsuits have been filed. The manufacturers of transvaginal mesh implants have found themselves in multidistrict litigation or MDL. MDL is a similar procedure to a class action lawsuit, though in an MDL, plaintiffs retain individual legal council instead of having one lawyer, or having a team of lawyers, running a single lawsuit with many plaintiffs.

One woman from South Dakota was already awarded more than $11 million dollars in damages in her lawsuit against the manufacturers of her vaginal mesh implant, Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon unit.

If you or someone you love has suffered from complications stemming from vaginal mesh, you have rights. You can start to take control of the situation by visiting the Transvaginal Mesh, Vaginal Sling, Vaginal Mesh and Bladder Sling Class Action Lawsuit Investigation. Here, you can submit your information for review by a lawyer who specializes in this type of lawsuit. This review is free of charge. Based on this review, you can receive guidance on the next steps to take.