A South Dakota woman was recently awarded $3.35 million in the first of 2,100 vaginal mesh lawsuits. They jury will now weigh punitive damages that may total as much as $16.75 million.

The Atlantic City jury found that Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon unit failed to warn a South Dakota woman’s surgeon of the risks tied to its Gynecare Prolift vaginal mesh implant and fraudulently misled her.

Plaintiff Linda Gross, a 47-year-old nurse, filed the vaginal mesh lawsuit with her husband, claiming that she suffered from constant pain and 18 operations since the device was implanted.

What Are Vaginal Mesh Implants?

Transvaginal mesh implants are typically made of porous, synthetic polyethylene plastic. Originally, the device was designed for hernia repair that was repurposed for use in women suffering from conditions including pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI).

Instead, manufacturers of hernia mesh found a new market for the product in repairing pelvic floor disorders, but the products were not sufficiently tested in humans before implanting them in women. Nonetheless, some of the world’s largest medical device manufacturers, led by Johnson & Johnson, have sold millions of these devices to be implanted in women throughout the country.

The synthetic mesh has edges that are allegedly in some cases piercing the surrounding tissue and puncturing the bladder, uterus, or bowel. The “patches” can also migrate, causing irreparable damage as they move around. Women are also suffering horrible infections because of the mesh.

These types of mesh underwent virtually no safety review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or any other regulatory agency before being put on the market by manufacturers.

Vaginal Mesh Complications

A significant number of the adverse events reported to the FDA regarding pelvic mesh implants are due to mesh erosion or contraction. Mesh erosion through the vaginal tissue can cause pain, bleeding and infection.

In addition, most surgical mesh products are made of polypropylene, a material that can shrink after being implanted, causing serious vaginal mesh side effects and the pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) condition to return.

Symptoms of vaginal sling failure include:

• Urinary incontinence
• Abdominal pain
• Pelvic pain
• Pain during sexual intercourse
• Bleeding

The injuries that women are suffering from this vaginal mesh implant product are severe and debilitating and could have been avoided had people had the proper information, the vaginal mesh lawsuits alleged.

The edges of the mesh/sling cut through the skin after implantation causing infection and cutting into nearby structures sometimes puncturing the bladder, bowel, and uterus.

Additionally, petroleum based synthetic material is particularly capable of causing infection because the material itself is a “breeding ground” for bacteria. Complications from these infections include incontinence, extreme pain during intercourse, urinary tract infection, back pain, and an inability to walk. Some of these infections spread through the whole body and can lead to death.

Johnson & Johnson Vaginal Mesh Lawsuits

Nearly 100,000 individual vaginal mesh lawsuits have been filed against mesh manufacturers in the United States as a result of these injuries. In its most recent quarterly report, Johnson & Johnson admits that it alone faces 33,000 pending lawsuits over its pelvic mesh devices.

All of the complaints involve similar claims that women suffered painful and disfiguring complications following the use of surgical mesh to repair pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or female stress urinary incontinence (SUI).

The lawsuits allege that the manufacturers sold defective and unreasonably dangerous products, withholding information from consumers and the medical community about the risk that the bladder sling and vaginal mesh may erode through the vagina, cause infections and other injuries.