The DePuy Hip Replacement Recall in the News
Prone To Failure, Some All-Metal Hip Implants Need To Be Removed Early
NPR
When Susy Mansfield needed a hip replacement in 2009, her orthopedic surgeon chose a relatively new and untested kind of artificial hip made entirely of metal. Older-model artificial hips are usually made of a tough plastic and metal. But they can wear out after 10 or 15 years, especially in people who are physically active… So manufacturers of the newer all-metal hips have touted them as the right choice for younger patients. But for Mansfield, and thousands of other artificial hip patients, they've been a bad choice.
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Metal-on-metal hip implants: No reason to take risk, study warns
Healthpop.com
Metal-on-metal hip implants are much more likely to need repair or replacement, a new study warns. The study authors are calling on doctors to stop using the implants – which have also been linked to high levels of potentially toxic metals in the bloodstream – once and for all.
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Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants Should Be Banned, Lancet Study Finds
Bloomberg
Metal-on-metal hip implants are more likely to fail than devices made from other materials and should be banned, U.K. researchers said after reviewing the world’s largest database on hip replacements. More than 500,000 patients in the U.S. and 40,000 in the U.K. have metal-on-metal hips and are at higher risk of device failure, according to the analysis, which was published today in The Lancet. Failure rates were as much as four times higher in women, who are likelier to have implants containing a larger prosthetic femoral head.
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Hip Implant Complaints Surge, Even as the Dangers Are Studied
The New York Times
The federal government has received a surge in complaints in recent months about failed hip replacements, suggesting that serious problems persist with some types of artificial hips even as researchers scramble to evaluate the health dangers. An analysis of federal data by The New York Times indicates that the Food and Drug Administration has received more than 5,000 reports since January about several widely used devices known as metal-on-metal hips, more than the agency had received about those devices in the previous four years combined.
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The High Cost of Failing Artificial Hips
The New York Times
Until a recent sharp decline, all-metal implants accounted for nearly one-third of the estimated 250,000 hip replacements performed each year in the United States. Some 500,000 patients have received an all-metal replacement hip, according to one estimate. A new study found that no new artificial hip or knee introduced during a recent five-year period — implants that included some of the all-metal hips — were more durable than older devices, and 30 percent were worse.
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Metal Hips Failing Fast, Report Says
The New York Times
In a troubling development for people with all-metal artificial hips, a registry that tracks orthopedic implants in Britain reported on Thursday that the failure rate of the devices was increasing. A British registry found that the highest failure rates involved the Articular Surface Replacement device, which was recalled. The National Joint Registry for England and Wales said that an all-metal artificial hip once sold by Johnson & Johnson had failed in an estimated one-third of the patients who had been followed for the longest time. The device was recalled by the company last year.
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Hip Implants Targeted for Health-Device Probe by House Democrats
Bloomberg
House Democrats asked Republican leaders to investigate the safety of metal-on-metal hip implants made by companies such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and stents used to clear clogged brain arteries. Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats led by Representative Henry Waxman of California urged Republicans in a letter today to hold hearings on the devices as the panel focuses on reauthorizing industry user fees that fund U.S. regulators’ review of new medical products. Past hearings have focused on delays in device approvals, the letter said.
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J&J Hip Failure Rate as High as 49 Percent, U.K. Doctors Say
Bloomberg Businessweek
A hip replacement made by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)’s DePuy unit fails in the U.K. as often as 49 percent of the time, or four times what the company cited in recalling the device last year, a British orthopedists’ group said.
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Medical Groups Tracking Hip, Knee Implants After J&J Recall
Bloomberg Businessweek
Databases created by two doctors’ groups are now tracking the success rates of artificial hips and knees in the U.S. following a Johnson & Johnson unit’s decision last year to recall a hip implant used on 93,000 patients.
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Hip implant lawsuits pile up
CBC News
Class action lawsuits for hip implants are mounting in Canada, with claims that the devices break down and cause pain. As Canadians age, increasingly they're turning to hip replacement surgery in hope of regaining pain-free mobility. But at least four class action lawsuits have been launched against different hip implant manufacturers. In some cases, they involve people who felt worse instead of better after the joint replacement surgeries.
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DePuy's handling of hip recall sparks questions
Reuters
In a highly unusual move, DePuy has hired a third party — Broadspire Services Inc, which manages workers compensation and other medical claims on behalf of insurance companies and employers — to administer patient claims for out-of-pocket medical costs associated with the recall …"This is an evolving strategy that is outside the norm of what companies have done in the past," said Edward Blizzard, partner with the law firm Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers. Blizzard is representing plaintiffs in the case.
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How Much Is Enough for Big Pharma?
The Huffington Post
The chromium poisoning that is destroying victims' bone and muscle is nothing new, in fact, you may remember a town of people who got cancer due to its ill effects from the movie Erin Brockovich. Now, they have Depuy and Johnson & Johnson to thank for this honor… one of Ed Blizzard's clients, 58-year-old construction worker Larry Barnett of Modesto, Illinois, "suffered debilitating pain… he had trouble even walking or standing after receiving the part" and now is "at much greater risk for cancer."
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Big Pharma Strikes Again
The Nation
Houston-based attorney Ed Blizzard is now representing patients who suffered from defective hip implants and are suing DePuy for damages. “The company knew the risk and failed to warn physicians and patients about the risk,” said Blizzard. In 2007, Blizzard won a $4.85 billion settlement from Merck on behalf of 27,000 patients who suffered complications, including cardiac arrest, after taking its drug, Vioxx, for arthritis pain.
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Prescribed Pain By The Prescription Racket
The Smirking Chimp
Now, because a lack of any regulation, Americans are being poisoned by hip implants created by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Depuy Orthopaedics Inc., that are not only not tracked by any regulated registry, but in many cases were never even tested before being put into people’s bodies – so the inside of victims hips could come to resemble a post-Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico… As Blizzard has said, “nobody signed up for an oil spill in their body.” They did not sign up for cancer either.
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Area man among hundreds suing over defective hip implants
Illinois State Journal-Register
Larry Barnett, a 58-year-old construction worker from Modesto, would like to go back to work. He’d like to again ride a horse, even water ski. But after two hip replacements and a revision necessitated when one hip replacement system had to be replaced just two years after it was implanted, he’d settle for pain-free good health. Barnett is one of several hundred people suing DuPuy Orthopaedics Inc., alleging that the Warsaw, Ind. company knew its ASR hip replacement system was defective, but continued to sell it. “The company knew the risk and failed to warn physicians and patients about the risk,” said Ed Blizzard, a Houston-based attorney who is representing Barnett and his wife, Paula, in their suit. “They shut the plant down in late 2009 and continued to sell the implants.”
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Government regulation — who needs it?
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The latest outrage from attorney Ed Blizzard's file: Thousands of patients who received toxic hip replacements — infecting patients, incredibly, with toxins like chromium, the same cancer-caujsing substance at the heart of the movie "Erin Brockavich." They were manufactured by DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson a few miles up U.S. 1 from here in New Brunswick, N.J. DePuy has already recalled 93,000 of the devices and the president of the subsidiary has resigned — but none of this had to happen.
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His Hip Hell: Patient Says Surgical Implant Left Dark Slime, Toxins in Body
The Daily
The day after his surgery this week, Larry Barnett still didn't know the extent of the damage caused by the defective artificial hip joint that had been inside his body since 2008… Ed Blizzard, a lawyer representing Barnett and 14 others, has filed four lawsuits against Indiana-based DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
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Ed Blizzard Appointed to DePuy Hip Replacement MDL Steering Committee
Edward Blizzard, a senior partner at Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers has been named to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the DePuy Orthopaedics’ recalled ASR Hip Implant. Ed’s previous experience, along with his reputation as a national leader in pharmaceutical and defective medical device litigation were key factors in this appointment. The Plaintiffs' Steering Committee handles discovery, hearings, trial preparation, and procedural motions on issues common to all plaintiffs.
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Can Johnson & Johnson Get Its Act Together?
New York Times
Johnson & Johnson has had to recall a variety of products because of quality-control problems across product lines, in multiple factories and in several units last year. Some of its consumer products, for instance, may have contained bits of metal. Others came in bottles with a moldy smell. And some products have gone missing from stores with hardly an explanation. All of this has put the company and its manufacturing under the intense scrutiny of lawmakers and officials at the Food and Drug Administration.
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Faulty DePuy Artificial Hip Points to Broken Implant System
New York Times
A recently recalled artificial hip made by a unit of Johnson & Johnson, designed to last 15 years or more, is failing worldwide at unusually high rates after just a few years. One of the most troubled orthopedic implants of the past decade, this artificial hip — known as the A.S.R., or Articular Surface Replacement — was originally promoted as a breakthrough in design that would last longer and provide patients more natural movement.
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Johnson & Johnson Sued Over Hip-Replacement Devices Recalled in August
Bloomberg
Johnson & Johnson was sued by a California construction worker over an implanted hip-replacement device that the drugmaker stopped selling last month after defect reports surfaced.
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CEO: J&J let down public, must work to build trust
Associated Press
With Johnson & Johnson's once-golden reputation tarnished by 11 recalls of medicines, contact lenses and hip implants in as many months, its chief executive says he knows the company let consumers down.
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Johnson & Johnson Recalls Hip Implants
New York Times
More than two years after the Food and Drug Administration began receiving complaints about the failure of a hip replacement implant made by the DePuy Orthopaedics unit of Johnson & Johnson, the company said Thursday that it was recalling two kinds of hip implants.
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A Recall a Week, That's All We Ask
Motley Fool
Keep it to one recall a week. Is that too much to ask Johnson & Johnson? Instead, the health-care giant is out with its second. Earlier this week, I reported about a manufacturing problem with its contact lenses, and now Johnson & Johnson is recalling two hip- replacement devices that seem to fail at a higher-than-expected rate.
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Yet more painful news
Independent
We don't often see a medical controversy unfold as swiftly as the hip replacement affair. On Thursday, the DePuy company announced a recall of two devices used by about 93,000 people around the world. The company said it regretted having to take the action and said it would pay for the cost of consultations with doctors, tests and procedures. Such a prompt acceptance of responsibility by a multinational is rare.
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Shoot from the hip
Irish Medical Times
It is one thing to recall some children's toys or even suspect batches of medicines that don't meet quality standards, but quite another to recall artificial hips already implanted to 3,500 Irish patients.
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Valley veteran at the center of J&J's hip replacement recall
Arizona Family
While he returned from war without any physical injuries, Scott ended up suffering from ongoing pain. It is a degenerative condition that nagged him for years. Eventually, he needed a hip replacement. Last week, he learned that his hip implant is now under recall.
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Hip replacement parts recalled: Johnson & Johnson company recalls 2 hip replacement systems
Charlotte Examiner
DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., a company owned by Johnson & Johnson, is recalling hip replacement products. The products being recalled are the ASR Hip Resurfacing System, which is sold throughout the United States. A second product, ASR XL Acetabular System is also being recalled.
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J&J Quality Problems Spread to Some of Its Device Units
FDA News
Johnson & Johnson, which has come under scrutiny for quality problems with its drug units, is starting to experience similar problems with its device divisions. DePuy Orthopaedics, a J&J company, last week announced a recall of some hip-replacement devices, citing new, unpublished data that show a five-year revision rate of about 12 percent for the ASR hip resurfacing system and 13 percent for the ASR XL acetabular system.
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J&J unit recalls 93,000 hip implant systems
CNN
Johnson and Johnson unit DePuy Orthopaedics, already in hot water with government regulators, issued a global recall Thursday of two hip aid systems after finding that more people than expected suffered pain which required additional surgery.
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J&J hip implants recalled
CBC
Two of Johnson & Johnson hip replacement models are being recalled, Health Canada says. The recall of two orthopedic hip replacements, the ASR Hip Resurfacing System and the ASR XL Acetabular System, made by J&J's artificial joint business applies in Canada, the department said Friday.
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