Mounting DePuy ASR Lawsuits in the Face of Recall
The Depuy ASR hip replacement lawsuits being filed against DePuy Orthopaedic Inc. are mounting as their Articular Surface Replacement hip system is allegedly defective. The latest is Michael Schaff’s case filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, and is seeking more than $75,000 in damages claiming negligence on the part of DePuy. Other lawsuits filed ahead before Schaff’s are now consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) under Judge David A. Katz of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The judge called this month for a status conference of the DePuy hip replacement lawsuit.
Filed on Oct. 11, 2011, Schaff’s case claimed that he had suffered injuries resulting from a faulty DePuy ASR hip replacement system. In November 2009, Mr. Schaff underwent surgery and needed to undergo a revision surgery in February 2011. The corrective surgery was only less than two years after the first implantation of the device. He claimed that he was suffering severe and irrevocable injuries externally and internally brought by the implant.
Depuy’s alleged “careless and negligent acts,” which includes the improper design and fraudulent marketing promises that the implant as safe and effective, the plaintiff acquired “great pain and anguish, both in mind and body, and will in the future continue to suffer,” as the lawsuit alleged. As a preliminary step in transferring the legal battle to the pending MDL (Northern District of Ohio under Judge Katz), Schaff’s case was removed to the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.
A number of orthopedic specialists opined that the design of the ASR Cup, appearing to be shallower than other devices in the market, was at the center of the implant’s contentious troubles. This echoed in an article published in the “New York Times.”
Designed for patients to have a wider range of movement, the manufacturer fabricated a shallower cup. They also removed the plastic liner inside the implant. In place are cobalt and chromium particles that flake off into the soft tissue in the surrounding area resulting to several problems. One problem is metallosis resulting from the socket friction of the ball portion of the hip implant.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the problem is not only confined to the recalled DePuy hip replacement alone but to the rest of the metal-on-metal hip implants. This is proven by the thousands of complaints recorded by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this year alone.
Because of the unpopularity the metal-on-metal device has become, there are about 21 manufacturers (e.g.DePuy Orthopaedics, Stryker, Zimmer, Biomet and Wright Medical Technology) ordered for post-market surveillance studies by the FDA as of May 2011. This regulatory move required these manufacturers to furnish additional studies on the possible adverse health effects of their implants. However, the studies will not be completed for the next five years.
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