Gresham Chiropractor

When DePuy Orthopedics, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary company, issued a worldwide recall of two hip replacement devices, the ASR XL Acetabular System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System, they already knew about the products having a higher failure rate than expected. In fact, an article in the New York times dated March this year revealed that DePuy already knew of the problems in its implants five months before the recall was issued.

In Australia, where the hip replacements were more widely sold than in the United States, the adverse data had been accumulating for quite some time. A director of an implant database stated that DePuy’s decision to completely remove the products from the market by the end of 2010 was already too late. Prior the August 2010 recall, DePuy already pulled out the ASR hip replacement implants from the Australian market.

The FDA in the United States in 2007 already received about 300 complaints regarding the ASR hip implants. DePuy’s ASR “cup,” sold as a separate component, did not go through clinical trials for approval. The moment the hip implants started to fail, DePuy tried to blame the surgeons stating that they were installing the hip devices wrong. Soon after, DePuy began sending letters to the doctors informing them that the implants are less effective on women, shorter people, and persons with weak bones. Clearly, DePuy acted too slowly once it found its products were defective.

A poorly designed metal-on-metal hip replacement implant such as DePuy’s can cause the metal ions to scrape off the components. These ions then spread to the surrounding tissues and the bloodstream, causing significant pain and damage. Typically, a hip replacement is supposed to last for 15 years, but many of DePuy’s hip replacements have been found to fail after only 5 years. If a recipient’s hip replacement has failed, he or she must undergo a second, difficult “revision” procedure, which can be very expensive.

Because DePuy issued the product recall too late, a lot of patients are affected. If you believe that you are affected by the hip replacement recall from DePuy, contact our DePuy recall lawyer for a free consultation to better understand your rights.