The Bard hernia mesh lawsuit updates

The first lawsuits began in 2005 immediately after the company recalled its Davol’s Kugel patch stating it could potentially cause bowel perforations and fistulas.

In 2007, the judicial panel decided to consolidate 150 of the Kugel patch lawsuits into an MDL.  However, more lawsuits kept coming in, and eventually, two bellwether trials were carried out in 2010.  Bard won in the first trial but lost in the second, and the plaintiffs were awarded $1.5 million.  Following the verdict in the second trial, Bard offered a $184 million settlement to the remaining Kugel patch lawsuits. The Kugel patch MDL was eventually closed in September 2017.

Bard is still facing a new batch of polypropylene hernia mesh lawsuits. Currently, Bard faces over 3,000 lawsuits over its Davol polypropylene products. According to the records, the MDL panel established the Bard litigation on 2nd August 2018. The first trails were expected to begin in 2020 but have been pushed forward due to the coronavirus pandemic. For instance, the first two bellwether trials were pushed forward to July 2020 and September 2020 respectively.

The hernia mesh recalls, complications and side effects

Since 2005 all the way to 2018, there has been over 200,000 units recalled and drawn from the market either voluntarily by the manufacturer or the FDA. The hernia mesh manufacturers decide to recall a product only if there is a problem with it or a high risk of serious complications occurring as a result.

Additionally, the FDA blames the recalled hernia mesh for severe adverse complications such as bowel perforation and obstruction observed in the patients using the devices. These are seen as the worst complication brought about by the hernia mesh and can even result in death.

Among the brands that were recalled in the past include;

• Bard Davol Composix hernia mesh

• Atrium C-QUR

• Ethicon Proceed surgical meshes

• Ethicon  Physiomesh composite meshes

The main reasons why some of these products were recalled include packaging errors that may result in delamination, lack of laminate coating on the meshes hence increasing the risk of adhesion, ring breakage causing perforation of the bowels and even fistulas and in some cases devices indicating a high failure rate leading to severe complications and in worst case scenarios additional surgeries.

These are the common complications the FDA identified and linked them to the recalled hernia meshes;

• Excruciating pain

• Infection

• Adhesion- the hernia mesh sticking to the nearby internal organs

• Hernia recurrence- the hernia comes back and this indicates the device put in place might be defective

• Bowel perforation- poking holes and damaging the intestines

Who qualifies for the hernia mesh lawsuits?

From all this, it’s easy to tell that some of these resulting complications are very serious and would essentially require proper medical care. On that note, it’s not everyone who qualifies for the hernia mesh lawsuits. For starters, you have to prove that you have had or been advised to get additional revision surgery after using any type of these allegedly defective hernia mesh devices.

If you're having some doubts, get a copy of your medical records from the past implant surgery. You can seek a law firm's help to obtain this documentation or simply contact the surgeon in charge of your implant. Once you determine that one of the mentioned hernia mesh products was implanted in your body and required corrective surgery, you can then decide on whether to file a lawsuit or not.

Keep in mind; these kinds of lawsuits always have a deadline. These are referred to as statutes of limitations, and they differ from one state to the other. So you might want to make a move sooner than later.