Johnson & Johnson stated in a court filing last week that unknown callers are illegally soliciting women to file fraudulent lawsuits against its Ethicon division over non-existent transvaginal mesh complications so they can collect settlements.

Johnson & Johnson and their Ethicon subsidiary are in the crosshairs of more than 35,000 transvaginal mesh lawsuits filed by women who say the medical devices caused them serious harm.

Transvaginal mesh is a type of surgical implant designed to support organs of the pelvis like the uterus and bladder when their normal support structures weaken, typically from childbirth or age. Over 70,000 federal lawsuits have been filed against a wide range of manufacturers by women who claim these mesh devices caused severe injuries such as perforated organs, mesh erosion into the vagina, infection, infertility, pain during sex, and other complications.

In a January 14 filing, Johnson & Johnson asked the judge overseeing all federal vaginal mesh lawsuits to allow an investigation into the unsolicited calls, which allegedly came from unknown callers who identified themselves as representatives from Johnson & Johnson or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and told women they could receive up to $40,000 if they filed an Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuit.

“Women across the nation are receiving unsolicited phone calls from strangers who are seeking — or, more disturbingly, already know — their very personal medical information,” the company said. “These individuals, who on some occasions may call as often as 50 times a month, try to entice each woman into filing a lawsuit, oftentimes disregarding whether she has an injury or even had a mesh implant at all.”

Johnson & Johnson cited an unidentified Indiana woman who recorded one of these phone solicitations. Even after telling the caller that she didn’t have mesh surgery, the solicitor told her she should “tell a lie if you want to get the $30,000 up to $40,000.”

One of the lead lawyers for plaintiffs in the Ethicon vaginal mesh litigation, Bryan Aylstock, called Johnson & Johnson’s claim “baseless” and said they are merely a tactic to get out of various transvaginal mesh lawsuits facing Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson. Several cases have already led to multi-million dollar settlements against Ethicon, awarded to women with documented proof of severe medical injuries.

Aylstock said none of the lawyers helping direct the Ethicon mesh litigation “condones or approves of the fraudulent conduct alleged by Ethicon.”

He said Johnson & Johnson’s accusations are an attempt to shift focus away from the fact that its vaginal mesh products harmed thousands of women, adding that attempts to scam consumers are nothing new.

“Similar unscrupulous telephone and e-mail scams abound involving requests to send money in order to obtain overseas wire transfers or lost family fortunes,” Aylstock said.

Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuits Growing

Transvaginal mesh — also called vaginal mesh, pelvic mesh, bladder slings, and other alternative terms — was based on an older technology called surgical mesh. Because of this, Ethicon and other manufacturers of vaginal mesh were able to skip several stages of clinical testing before putting their products on the market.

Transvaginal mesh lawsuits like those facing Ethicon allege that the medical devices can cause serious complications and side effects, and that these problems could have been identified if the proper testing had occurred.

Thousands of transvaginal mesh lawsuits have been filed against all manufacturers of vaginal mesh, including American Medical Systems, C.R. Bard, Boston Scientific, and Coviden, accusing them of failing to take the proper precautions in bringing an allegedly defective medical device to the market.

So many lawsuits have been filed over alleged transvaginal mesh complications that they have been consolidated into several multidistrict litigations (MDLs) across the country.

MDLs coordinate similar suits, like transvaginal mesh lawsuits, to help streamline these complex cases by allowing lawyers to share in pre-trial discovery and cohesively work together when facing large amounts of evidence and documents when taking on corporate giants.

Since transvaginal mesh lawsuits often make very similar allegations and hinge on similar evidence, they are well-suited for an MDL. However, since several different companies made transvaginal mesh, there are several different transvaginal mesh MDLs against specific companies, including Ethicon (Johnson & Johnson), Coloplast, and C.R. Bard.

The Ethicon vaginal mesh MDL is In re: Ethicon Inc., Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2327, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.