The latest lawsuit in the pelvic mesh MDL against Boston Scientific was filed by a Georgia woman who reports issues with the Boston Scientific urethral sling.

Plaintiff Sandra V. filed her Boston Scientific urethral sling lawsuit via a short form complaint in a West Virginia federal court after experiencing problems resulting from the Lynx Suprapubic Mid-Urethral Sling System that was initially implanted in June 2005.

Women like Sandra have had pelvic mesh products of various types implanted within their bodies to treat conditions including pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI). At least eight different products from Boston Scientific have been targeted in these lawsuits against the medical company.

These mesh products consist of monofilament propylene mesh or collagen. Despite the company’s claims that polypropylene is an inert substance, the Boston Scientific urethral sling lawsuit states that the material is “biologically incompatible with human tissue and promotes a negative immune response and a large subset of the population implanted with the Products.”

These polypropylene materials can then cause inflammation in the pelvic region which leads to severe adverse reactions. The complaint says that “Defendants’ collagen products cause hyper-inflammatory responses leading to problems including chronic pain and fibrotic reaction.” Allegedly, these collagen products also “disintegrate after implantation in the female pelvis,” and “cause adverse tissue reactions, and are causally related to infection.”

According to the claim, in July 2011, the FDA’s Safety Communication indicated that “serious complications associated with surgical mesh for transvaginal repair of POP are ‘not rare’” (emphasis in the original). The safety communication also stated that mesh shrinkage leading to vaginal shortening, tightening and pain has also been reported among the adverse events caused by the product.

Among other reactions reported by women implanted with pelvic mesh include immune reactions, tissue breakdown, mesh shrinkage leading to inflammation and contraction of nearby tissue that results in injury and the need for surgical repair, nerve damage, impairment of normal daily activities including intercourse, walking and having bowel movements, chronic pain, fibrosis, infection and more.

The Boston Scientific urethral sling Master Form Complaint also indicates that “women have been forced to undergo extensive medical treatment including, but not limited to, operations to locate and remove mesh, operations to attempt to repair pelvic organs, tissue and nerve damage, the use of pain control and other medications, injections into various areas of the pelvis, spine, and the for China, and operations to remove portions of the female genitalia.”

Sandra has brought forth a number of allegations in her Boston Scientific urethral sling lawsuit including negligence, strict liability for design defect, manufacturing defect and failure to warn, breach of express and implied warranties, discovery rule, tolling and fraudulent concealment and punitive damages.

Sandra and other women are seeking compensatory damages, restitution and disgorgement of profits, attorneys’ fees and costs, economic damages, punitive damages and any additional relief as deemed just and proper by the Court.

The Boston Scientific Urethral Sling Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cb-03942, and is part of the Boston Scientific Pelvic Mesh MDL In re: Boston Scientific Corp. Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2326, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Charleston Division.