A group of women has filed a new Essure lawsuit against Bayer Corp, the medical device manufacturer that is already facing multiple lawsuits over it’s Essure birth control device.

The Essure lawsuit was bought by plaintiff Kimberly B. and several other female plaintiffs. According to the Essure lawsuit, Kimberly suffered serious injuries because the defendants, Bayer Corp, manufactured, marketed, and promoted an unreasonably dangerous and defective medical device.

According to the Essure lawsuit, in order to reap necessary profits the device manufacturer needed physicians and patients to trust the safety of the permanent birth control device.

Kimberly alleges that in order to gain the market’s trust, Essure manufacturers implemented a scheme to defraud patients and physicians by using false pretenses, false representations, and concealing material facts.

The Essure lawsuit claims that thousands of women reported complaints directly to the Essure manufacturer, but instead of disclosing the complaints to the FDA as required by law, the manufacturer withheld the majority of the information. The plaintiffs allege that the FDA actually cited Conceptus several times for withholding safety information.

The Essure lawsuit further alleges that Conceptus made hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue off of the defective Essure device until the company was bought out by Bayer in 2013, and after the buyout Bayer continued to illegally hide the safety risks of Essure.

What is Essure?

Essure is a popular form of non-hormonal and non-surgical permanent birth control. At the time of its release, the medical device was a revolutionary breakthrough. Thousands of women have had the device implanted rather than choosing a surgical form of sterilization.

The device consists of two flexible metal and polyester coils that are inserted through the vagina and uterus and placed inside each fallopian tube.  After insertion, tissue begins to grow around the coils, blocking the fallopian tubes and causing permanent sterilization.

The Essure device was first created by a company known as Conceptus back in 1998. When the permanent birth control device received FDA approval in 2002 it was the first of its kind on the market.

According to the Essure lawsuit, at the time Conceptus marketed the device, Essure was the company’s only commercial product and the company relied on the success of Essure to cover massive debt problems within the company.

Essure Problems and Complications

Unfortunately, many women have been suffering from Essure problems and Essure complications. In 2013, the FDA released a new app called MedWatcher.  This app allowed patients to report drug and medical device complications directly to the FDA.

By that time thousands of women had already formed a Facebook support group called “Essure Problems.” To date, over 29,000 Facebook users have joined the Essure Problems support group.

The new MedWatcher app allowed this support group and others to begin to stand up to the medical device manufacturer and notify the FDA directly of the Essure complications they were experiencing.  Essure complications allegedly include allergic reactions, rashes, bloating, excessive bleeding, organ perforation, pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy, and miscarriage.

The Essure Lawsuit is Case No. 1622-CC00690, filed in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, State of Missouri.