After a woman experiences a difficult childbirth or surgery, pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI) can be a common and painful experience. In some cases, these problems improve over time, but in other situations, medical intervention may be warranted. If you suffer from pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence, the last thing you need is to discover that transvaginal mesh has made these conditions worse. Unfortunately, that is sometimes the reality. At Moll Law Group, our transvaginal mesh lawyers help consumers around the nation who have been harmed by faulty products. Billions of dollars have been recovered in cases in which we have been involved.
Pelvic organ prolapse happens when any pelvic organ (or several of them) prolapse from their normal location in the belly and push into the vagina. Some organs that might do this include the rectum, uterus, urethra, or bladder. In some cases, pelvic prolapse is also connected to stress urinary incontinence, resulting in leakage when someone coughs, laughs, or lifts heavy objects.
Your doctor may prescribe a medical device, such as a transvaginal mesh implant, to treat these conditions. Products such as these are closely monitored by the FDA, but sometimes they are defective. A medical device may have manufacturing, marketing, or design defects. These defects can result in serious complications that may lead to extensive surgeries, IV therapy, drainage of hematomas, blood transfusions, pain killers, medical management, and the recurrence of the original conditions that necessitated the use of the medical device. For example, mesh erosion sometimes occurs, causing the implanted mesh to get into the tissue or perforate the organs.
For many consumers, the costs of additional medical care are financially debilitating, as well as painful, and their only recourse is a product liability lawsuit. In most states, medical device manufacturers may be held strictly liable for product defects. This means that you only need to prove a defect, causation, and injuries and damages. A manufacturer of a defective device in those states can be held accountable even if it used reasonable care to try to make the device safe. In other states, however, you may have to prove negligence. That is, you will have to show that the manufacturer breached a standard of care and that it caused your injuries.
In some cases, manufacturers have argued that they warned doctors, and that it is the doctors who should be held responsible, not them, under the learned intermediary doctrine. This doctrine provides that in a marketing defect (failure to warn) case, if a manufacturer warns doctors of serious side effects, it has discharged its responsibility to the consumer. Doctors are expected to be in a better position to advise a patient about whether he or she is a suitable candidate for a type of medical device or drug than the manufacturer is. If a manufacturer makes this argument successfully, and a doctor's use of the information provided is not up to the applicable standard of care, the doctor may be held liable under a medical malpractice theory.
If you suffer from pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence that is made worse by transvaginal mesh, the defective medical device attorneys at Moll Law Group are available to help you pursue compensation for your injuries. Our firm represents consumers harmed around the nation, including in states such as Michigan, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, Florida, and California. Call us at 312-462-1700 or complete our online form to schedule a free consultation with a transvaginal mesh attorney.