Ethicon violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law by pushing devices such as the TVT-O and Prolift by marketing defective products.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaginal mesh subsidiary, Ethicon Inc., used a direct marketing plan intending to “create consumer demand” for women who would not have looked for a surgical solution for pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence. Ethicon violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law by pushing vaginal mesh devices such as the TVT-O and Prolift by marketing defective products which caused an unavoidable and foreseeable risk of life-altering injuries.
Ethicon advertised the benefits of their products directly to women omitting known risks of harm with patient brochures and in-office counseling materials that directed women to telephone hotlines which funneled unknowing women to physicians ready to implant the devices.
Now that the Multidistrict Litigation in West Virginia is winding down and Judge Goodwin is remanding the severely injured women to the States, these same women who were deceived by Ethicon are proving the deceit time after time with evidence of shiny brochures touting the supposed benefits of the devices without including the risks.
“There is no stronger evidence that supports a failure to warn claim against a product manufacturer than a brochure that an injured women has in hand as proof of direct and false statements by Ethicon.” – Dr. Greg Vigna
Greg Vigna, MD, JD, practicing physician, national pharmaceutical injury attorney, and Certified Life Care Planner says, “There is no stronger evidence that supports a failure to warn claim against a product manufacturer than a brochure that an injured women has in hand as that is proof of direct and false statements by Ethicon that was relied on in the decision by the woman for surgery. The warning sections of Ethicon’s brochures cited in California’s False Advertising case lists ‘transient leg pain lasting 24-48 hours may occur and can usually be managed with mild analgesics after a GYNECARE TVT-O.’ The brochure says nothing of life-altering permanent pain.”
Dr. Vigna adds, “Ethicon changed its warning for the TVT-O in 2015, but it still is not sufficient as it does not warn of permanent life-altering pain from pudendal and obturator neuralgia that is foreseeable and unavoidable. My team is representing newly injured women from the TVT-O and Ethicon’s Abbrevo device for both design and warning defects for women who suffer with these disabling injuries.”
Greg Vigna, MD, JD, operates a California and Washington DC law firm and has teamed up with Martin Baughman, a national pharmaceutical injury trial law firm from Dallas, Texas, and together they represent women with catastrophic pain syndromes that are proceeding down the path to justice.
For articles, video resources, and information, visit the Pudendal Neuralgia Educational Portal (https://tvm.lifecare123.com/pudental-portal) or https://tvm.lifecare123.com/. Click here for information regarding sling related complications: https://tvm.lifecare123.com/slingebook.html
