A woman from Connecticut has filed a transvaginal mesh lawsuit in the multidistrict litigation against Ethicon Inc. in West Virginia federal court.

Plaintiff Ann Marie T. says that in February 2009 she was implanted with transvaginal mesh systems marketed under the brand names TVT and Prolift. She is now suing Ethicon, which manufactures the TVT and Prolift, and Ethicon’s parent company Johnson & Johnson over complications that she says arose from those implants.

Ann Marie’s transvaginal mesh lawsuit is one of many in the multidistrict litigation pending against Ethicon and J&J in a West Virginia federal court. This MDL consists of several similar individual transvaginal mesh lawsuits brought together for coordinated pretrial procedures under the supervision of a single judge.

Generally, plaintiffs in these transvaginal mesh lawsuits are calling on Ethicon and J&J to account for complications the plaintiffs experienced following implantation of the defendants’ vaginal mesh products. These mesh implants were created to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, two conditions that women sometimes experience following childbirth, hysterectomy or menopause.

Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the uterus, bladder, rectum or other organs in the pelvis drop into the vagina due to failure of the pelvic muscles to support them. Stress urinary incontinence is leakage of the bladder during physical exertion when the pelvic muscles are not strong enough to support the urethra.

Transvaginal mesh is used to treat both those conditions by supporting the pelvic structures that no longer get necessary support from pelvic muscles. Surgeons first started using mesh for that purpose in the 1970s, adapting techniques that had been used for abdominal repair in the 1950s. The first device designed specifically for transvaginal use was approved by the FDA in 1996.

Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuits

Plaintiffs in the transvaginal mesh lawsuits allege that these products are defective in ways that caused them painful and damaging complications. They say that the products are made of polypropylene mesh that causes an adverse immune reaction when the mesh is implanted, and that the immune response degrades both the mesh itself and the surrounding pelvic tissue.

They also claim that the way the device must be implanted puts the patient at risk for damage to nerves and internal organs. The mesh may also elongate, shrink, or migrate out of place, and it can stimulate the development of scar tissue that results in “nerve damage, pain, and erosion of the mesh into other organs, and failure of the device,” they say.

Plaintiffs also claim the defendants have under-reported instances of transvaginal mesh problems in an effort to keep doctors and patients in the dark about them. They accuse the manufacturers of avoiding conducting studies and establishing registries to track the adverse events associated with transvaginal mesh.

Reports were received by the FDA, however. The plaintiffs cite announcements by the FDA from 2008 and 2011 made in response to more than 1,000 complaints about transvaginal mesh complications. The FDA described the issue as one of “continuing serious concern,” the plaintiffs say.

The Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuit is Case No.2:15-CV-14684 filed within the larger Ethicon Transvaginal Mesh MDL in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.