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A Texas judge has reduced by nearly half a $73 million vaginal mesh settlement awarded to a woman who suffered permanent nerve damage caused by a vaginal mesh bladder sling product that was surgically implanted as a treatment for stress urinary incontinence.
In September, jurors awarded Martha Salazar some $23 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages as part of a vaginal mesh settlement against device manufacturer Boston Scientific Corp. Judge Ken Molberg reduced the punitive damages against Boston Scientific to $11.2 million, citing a state cap. The new vaginal mesh settlement award for Salazar is now nearly $34 million, about half of her original award.
Jurors reached their verdict in just a matter of hours following a two-week trial during which Salazar’s vaginal mesh lawyer presented evidence showing an e-mail sent from a Boston Scientific executive to the company’s sales force in which he tells them “to ignore a company-funded study raising questions about the sling’s safety,” Bloomberg reports.
“I certainly wouldn’t hand this out to any physicians,” Robbins said in the e-mail.
Jurors found that the Obtryx trans-vaginal mesh incontinence sling was defectively designed and that the Natick, Massachusetts-based company failed to properly warn both patients and doctors about its risks.
There are more than 12,000 vaginal mesh lawsuits pending in which women allege that vaginal mesh implants, such as the Obtryx sling, erode inside the body, damaging organs and causing extreme pain. Surgery is often required to remove the implant.
Salazar’s was the third “bellwether trial” to take place against Boston Scientific’s Obtryx sling, and the first case the company lost. Bellwether trials are intended to see how juries may rule on similar evidence and testimony. Bellwether cases help reduce duplicative discovery, avoid conflicting rulings from different federal judges and mitigate the inconvenience of the various parties, witnesses and the courts.
“This woman was seeking help with minor urine leakage and wound up with a catastrophic, life-altering injury that required four major surgeries,” Salazar’s lawyer told Bloomberg News. “It’s a tragedy that these slings are still on the market.”
There are some 30 manufacturers of vaginal mesh implants, many of whom, like Boston Scientific, are named defendants in vaginal mesh litigation. Many of the vaginal mesh lawsuits involving manufacturers Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson and C.R. Bard have been consolidated in federal court in West Virginia, while others are pending in state courts in Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Missouri, Texas and California.
In 2012, the FDA ordered manufacturers to study rates of organ damage and complications linked to vaginal mesh products.
Vaginal mesh implants are typically manufactured from a porous synthetic or other organic material. The device is surgically implanted to repair damage tissue often caused by organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence
In April, Endo International Pic agreed to pay $830 million to settle 20,000 lawsuits stemming from eroded vaginal mesh implants, leaving patients with painful incontinence.
In general, vaginal mesh lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.
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