A Tennessee woman has filed lawsuit against Ethicon for transvaginal mesh complications after a surgery.

Plaintiff Brenda Q. is filing a transvaginal mesh complications lawsuit against Ethicon. This lawsuit will be included in the larger multidistrict litigation, or MDL, against Ethicon and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson.

This transvaginal mesh complications MDL has gathered together lawsuits from plaintiffs who suffer primarily from pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI).

A typical way to treat these conditions is through a process that implants a mesh medical device inside the patient to help support the pelvic region and offer relief to the symptoms from which she is suffering.

This is often seen as a minimally invasive way to repair damage or weakening to the walls of the vagina or when the muscles in the pelvic floor have been damaged or weakened. However, the implantation of these mesh devices has led to damaging and painful complications for some patients, some of whom have had to revision surgery to have their mesh removed.

Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon have manufactured, marketed and distributed a commonly used transvaginal mesh product for many years. As early as 2005, the MDL complaint alleges that Ethicon marketed and sold a vaginal mesh system without the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Over the next several years, the companies began to sell systems that include the Prolift System, the Prolift+M System, the Prosima System, and the TVT System – including the TVT-O and the TVT-S Systems.

Brenda was implanted with the TVT-S System manufactured by Ethicon.

Even though this procedure is seen as minimally invasive and is usually successful in treating pelivic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, some patients, including Brenda, experience severe transvaginal mesh complications.

Transvaginal Mesh Complications

The pelvic mesh products are made from a polypropylene mesh; the makers claim that the material is inert. However, according to the transvaginal mesh complications MDL, scientific evidence shows that it is actually incompatible with human tissue on a biological level and instigates an immune response in many patients. When this immune response occurs, the mesh product itself will begin to break down and many patients experience transvaginal mesh-induced problems.

Some mesh patients have been  unable to get resolution of their complications without undergoing invasive revision surgery. Revision surgery for pelvic mesh exposes the patient to a whole new set of problems, such as additional pain, prolonged recovery time, and the risk of postsurgical infection.

Even though scientific evidence, as the MDL alleges, points to the defectiveness of the product, Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson continued to manufacture and market their devices to the medical community. They claimed that their mesh products were safe, effective and reliable medical devices.

This transvaginal mesh complications lawsuit claims that the defendants “intentionally, recklessly and/or negligently concealed, suppressed, omitted, and misrepresented the risks, dangers, defects, and disadvantages” of their products.

It, and the MDL, go on to claim that the defendants “advertised, promoted, marketed, sold and distributed the Pelvic Mesh Products as a safe medical device when, in fact, Defendants knew that the Pelvic Mesh Products were not safe for their intended purposes and that the Pelvic Mesh Products would cause, and did cause, serious medical problems, and in some patients, catastrophic and permanent injuries.”

Brenda’s Transvaginal Mesh Complications Lawsuit joins MDL No. 2327 as Case No. 2:17-cv-3292 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Charleston Division.