According to the BBC, Johnson & Johnson has lost a class action lawsuit in Australia’s federal court after more than 1,350 women sued the company’s subsidiary Ethicon for failing to disclose the dangers of vaginal mesh to its consumers. Those patients claimed to have “suffered chronic pain, bleeding and severe discomfort during sexual intercourse after having the mesh surgically implanted.” Damages will be set in 2020.
In America, the sale of vaginal mesh was mostly stopped by the FDA in April 2019 because of the product’s safety concerns, including pelvic organ prolapse. I say “mostly stopped” because the mesh is still used to treat stress and urinary incontinence. You’d think there would be better options, but you’d be wrong. Even that legislation took years: the FDA announced first announced it would investigate claims into the danger of vaginal mesh after multiple women complained of untenable, childbirth-like, persistent pain back in 2011.
Just last month Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $117 million to settle claims across 41 states and D.C. for “deceptively marketing transvaginal pelvic mesh implants,” the New York Times reported. The company faces similar, ongoing litigation in Canada and Europe.