A plaintiff, Kimberly G., has a products liability lawsuit against the manufacturers of the hernia mesh used in her pelvic procedure. She alleges that she suffered complications due to its implantation.

The defendants facing the allegations are Ethicon, Inc., and Johnson & Johnson.

She files the TVT Abbrevo lawsuit in West Virginia federal court and seeks the following damages against the defendant: Negligence, Strict Liability, Fraudulent Concealment, and Negligent misrepresentation, among several others.

Kimberly’s claim is filed as part of a large multidistrict litigation, or MDL, centered on allegations that the hernia mesh caused a severe negative auto-immune response and other serious adverse health effects.

TVT Abbrevo Complications Facts

According to the lawsuit, the hernia mesh was defectively manufactured and designed. The purported allegations against the manufacturers is that the hernia mesh is not “reasonably safe” for use in its intended purpose for hernia repair.

The lawsuit maintains that patients who have had the hernia mesh implanted have suffered from serious adverse health effects and complications, including but not limited to: chronic pain; deformation of mesh; excessive and chronic inflammation; nerve damage; tissue damage; and even death.

The TVT Abbrevo complications lawsuit does not make mention of the plaintiff’s requirement for revision surgery, however several patients in the MDL have had to undergo surgical removal of their hernia mesh to resolve injuries and adverse health effects.

According to the TVT Abbrevo complications lawsuit, the defendants had failed to properly study the alleged risks involved in a hernia mesh implantation to the female pelvis.

Hernia mesh is typically implanted to help treat pelvic organ prolapse (POP), the medical condition in which the female’s pelvic organ, such as the bladder, “drops” or prolapses. This medical condition may occur as the pelvic organ may become weak or stretched out from either childbirth or surgery.

Other conditions that are also treated by a hernia mesh includes stress urinary incontinence (SUI), wherein a non-absorbable hernia mesh is implanted to help support such weakened abdominal tissue.

However, patients purport that the hernia mesh injured their abdomen, bowel, and intestines. And these plaintiffs have had to undergo additional surgery to fix the developed complications.

According to the TVT Abbrevo complications lawsuit, the alleged material that the hernia mesh product is composed of is purportedly biologically incompatible with human tissue.

The lawsuit maintains that the insertion of the hernia mesh will inevitably cause its degradation, deterioration, and fragmentation, over time.

The TVT Abbrevo complications lawsuit states, “the multi-layer coating prevented adequate incorporation of the mesh into the body and caused or contributed to an intense inflammatory and chronic foreign body response resulting in an adverse tissue reaction including migration and damage to the surrounding tissue…”

Additionally, “the multi-layer coating provides a breeding ground for bacteria in which the bacteria cannot be elimination by the body’s immune response, which allows infection to proliferate.”

Kimberly’s TVT Abbrevo Complications Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-03702, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The Transvaginal Mesh MDL is In Re: Ethicon, Inc., Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2327, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.