US watchdog Calls Out to Failed Hip Implant Patients

“Because many individuals who received a DePuy ASR hip implant do not want to go through revision surgery, they do not complain,” says the independent consumer monitor US Drug Watchdog. Many may have wavered on asking for fair compensation from the manufacturer, but recent news reports say that the DePuy recall has affected its former spokeswoman, who is now criticizing the company and its prostheses. 

DePuy Orthopedics, a spinoff company of Johnson & Johnson Inc., recalled their ASR hip replacement system on August 2010 after researchers revealed its higher-than-normal failure rate. The device was introduced into the market on 2003 under the 510(k) approval process of the US Food and Drug Administration, and even in the absence of a clinical trial, was rapidly used by surgeons.Approximately 93,000 devices were implanted in patients worldwide.

The Australia and UK joint registry detected a failure rate of more than 50% of the average rate of all-metal hip implants. It was written in various reports that hip replacement complications were experienced by recipients of the device. Difficulty in walking, pain on the hip region, hip swelling and lack of flexibility are some of the symptoms of a failing hip implant. Flaking of the all-metal device releases metal particles into the bloodstream which may expose patients to metallosis or metal poisoning. Manifestations of metallosis include inflammatory reaction, bone loss and soft tissue damage.

On the NBC Nightly News, the US Drug Watchdog was quoted as saying ”There is a huge problem with metal-on-metal artificial hip implant devices.” “We could have tens of thousands of DePuy hip implant victims in the US, and because of age, or not wanting to go through a hip replacement revision surgery, they say nothing,” added by the group.

In the United States, the US Drug Watchdog is a premier pharmaceutical watchdog. US consumers’ right to a safety prescription medicine and medical devices is upheld by the group.

There are several advocates for patient safety and stringent regulation and marketing of medical devices in the United States, Australia, as well as UK. The company, DePuy Orthopedics, is also taking actions concerning their device through a hip replacement recall. Patients and surgeons ought to take a closer look on the devices and right away report hip implant failure symptoms.

Reference:

http://earlsview.com/2011/10/07/us-drug-watchdog-says-its-urgent-they-identify-all-recalled-depuy-asr-hip-implant-recipients/

http://usdrugwatchdog.com/index.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/us-drug-watchdog-says-urgent-identify-recalled-depuy-183018774.html

www.arthritistoday.org/news/asr-depuy-hip-replacement-recall078.php