Wisconsin Receives One Cases From MDL in State Court

A group of 80 Wisconsin residents have filed a lawsuit over the DePuy ASR XL Acetabular Hip System, alleging that they will face a lifetime of health problems due to issues with the metal-on-metal hip replacement implant, which was recalled last year. The DePuy ASR Lawsuit regarding product liability was filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against DePuy Orthopaedics and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson. The complaint alleges that all of the plaintiffs received a defective DePuy ASR hip system that resulted in injuries. One case though, was remanded back to Wisconsin State Court.

The reason for this being that TRP and Associates LLC, who distributed the DePuy hip implants, is headquarted in Wisconsin.

The new Wisconsin lawsuits allege the DePuy ASR implant can come loose, cause infection and fracture surrounding bone. They also could increase levels of metal in blood and body tissues when the metal components of the implant wear, causing microscopic shards of cobalt and chromium to make their way into the bloodstream leading to DePuy hip metal poisoning. As we’ve reported in the past, this can lead to even more serious long-term health problems including adding to tissue breakdown, bone loss, and even the formation of non-cancerous tumors, and even cobalt poisoning. According to a report published by The New York Times in March 2010, metal-on-metal hip implants have been used in about one-third of the approximately 250,000 hip replacements performed annually in this country. However, many of the nation’s leading orthopedic surgeons have reduced or stopped use of these devices because of concerns that they can cause severe tissue and bone damage.

Johnson & Johnson and their DePuy Orthopedics subsidiary obtained approval for the DePuy Pinnacle artificial hip without conducting rigorous premarket approval testing. It was approved under the 510(k) approval process as a "substantial equivalent" to older hip replacement devices, and it appears that a growing number of patients who had the hip implanted are discovering that it may be prone to early failure. It is alleged in these lawsuits, both those in the MDL and the state courts, that this rushed approval is responsible for the lax understanding of how the hip implant was supposed to work and why it didn’t.