The Legal Examiner Affiliate Network The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner search instagram avvo phone envelope checkmark mail-reply spinner error close The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner
Skip to main content

Boston Scientific, announced a major settlement covering 3,000 women injured by its vaginal mesh and bladder sling products. The settlement includes $119 million to settle claims from nearly 3,000 women who say they were injured by the company’s vaginal mesh products for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.

Boston Scientific, has squirreled away a litigation war chest of about $1.1 billion to cover its legal expenses over the ongoing transvaginal mesh and bladder sling debacle.

Boston Scientific is still exposed to injury and product liability claims from another 22,000 women who say they were injured by the same devices.

As the transvaginal lawsuits enter its fifth year, the massive litigation over the defective transvaginal mesh and bladder sling plastic devices is coming into settlement phase. American Medical System (AMS), saw the light early, threw in the towel earlier last year, and announced a multibillion dollar settlement and settled its docket of over 20,000 lawsuits. AMS is now being followed by Boston Scientific into the settlement phase.

Settlement Talks Progressing

Serious settlement discussions are underway involving the remaining vaginal mesh manufacturers who have not yet settled. There are 4 big players when it comes to the controversial vaginal mesh and bladder sling devices. These include AMS, CR Bard, Boston Scientific and Johnson and Johnson and its subsidiary Ethicon.

If there is no settlement, then these languishing cases will be remanded or sent back to their local federal districts for individual trials. If that happens, the sheer number of litigants will simply overwhelm the entire federal court system, creating havoc and roadblocks, lasting for years.

Johnson and Johnson Ethicon Gynecare Mesh Verdict

Johnson and Johnson (J&J) the world’s largest pharmaceutical and medical device maker is hammered in another loss in the on going transvaginal mesh wars. In the latest of a series of trials held in state and federal court, the jury has awarded $5.7 million verdict against J&J and its Ethicon subsidiary, over Ethicon’s Gynecare TVT Abbrevo device.

TransVaginal Wars Continue

There are more than 75,000 personal injury and product liability lawsuits against Ethicon and manufacturers of other similar products, including Boston Scientific, C.R. Bard, American Medical Systems (AMS), Coloplast, Cook Medical, Neomedic and others.

According to the latest court data from March, Judge Goodwin is overseeing at least 23,569 Ethicon vaginal mesh, 19,093 American Medical Systems (AMS) mesh, 15,429 Boston Scientific mesh, 10,525 Bard Avaulta mesh, 1,870 Coloplast vaginal mesh, 288 Cook Medical vaginal mesh and 83 Neomedic vaginal mesh lawsuits.

Transvaginal Mesh and Bladder Sling: No Benefit

Thousands of women had a vaginal mesh or bladder sling implanted to treat pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence. These unfortunate women have suffered severe internal injuries, urinary problems and other catastrophic complications as a result of the plastic medical devices, which may actually provide no benefit over other traditional methods of treating pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence.

Latest California Ethicon Trial

Recently, a California state jury, ordered Ethicon to pay Coleen Perry $700,000 in compensatory damages for complications with Gynecare TVT Abbrevo mesh.

$5 Million Punitive Damages Awarded

The jury also slammed the mesh manufacturer with $5 million in punitive damages, after they found the company acted with gross negligence.

Punitive damages are designed to punish Ethicon for acting with malice towards Perry and other women, finding that the company knew that the TVT Abbrevo vaginal mesh caused severe and serious complications, but failed to warn the doctors or patients.

Federal Vaginal Mesh MDL Litigation

The federal complaints blame the products which are used to treat pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI). The injured women claim that the products are defectively designed and cause serious complications, including infections, puncturing vital organs and eroding or perforating through the vagina.

2 Comments

  1. Gravatar for ahmed
    ahmed

    My name is Ahmed,i have been married to Robyn. She suffered from poor health while

    we were together which caused her to do six surgical operations followed the main operation.

    The main operation was removing her transvaginal mesh, but because of wrong doing in the operations room,

    my wife had to go through a long treatment therapy and multiple surgeries which affected my life as well.

    Supporting my wife during that time hurt me emotional and financial.

    My wife had a sympathy with me and told me by e-mail that she will give me half of what she is getting as a compensation

    from the wrong doing doctor case.

    My wife recently denied any rights for me and broke her promis and i think i deserve some compensation for

    the damages i have in my life...sincerely Ahmed ////////////////////

  2. Gravatar for Dakeys
    Dakeys

    $ 41.000 Will never be enough to settle do to vaginal mesh slaughtering and butchering that have been done to women . Most of us have lost our careers .billion dollars corporation only have money for their private airplanes, 4 homes, $ 25 million dollar bonuses . THE FDA SHOULD BE APART OF THE LAWSUITS !!!! RECALL, RECALL ,RECALL WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR !!!!!!!

Comments for this article are closed.