Another recent vaginal mesh lawsuit to be filed against American Medical Systems (AMS) was filed on December 14, 2012, in Connecticut District Court in New Haven. The lawsuit is over the company’s Monarch sling vaginal mesh device — a device which is used to help treat stress urinary incontinence caused by childbirth or menopause.
In this lawsuit, the plaintiff is stating that she was implanted with the Monarch sling device in July 2011. Like many plaintiffs, the device caused her to suffer from complications linked with the device, which included “difficulty urinating, repeated urinary tract infections, vaginal pain and bleeding.” The condition was so bad that she had to have the device surgically removed after numerous trips to the emergency room. Her situation is made worse by the fact that the surgery could not completely remove the device and so some of it is still inside of her body.
This lawsuits joins thousands of others that have been filed across the country over vaginal mesh devices. Vaginal mesh devices are implanted as part of a treatment for stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. The devices have been linked to serious side effects, including infections and erosion which can lead to bleeding, vaginal scarring and painful intercourse. There are various different vaginal mesh devices made by other manufacturers as well. Devices made by companies such as C.R. Bard, Boston Scientific, Johnson and Johnson subsidiary Ethicon and Coloplast have also been subject to lawsuits filed by users and their families over the injuries the devices cause. Nearly all of the lawsuits filed over vaginal mesh device complications claim that the manufacturers purposely hid the dangers linked to their devices from the public and healthcare professionals alike. One of the first such lawsuits to reach a courtroom which was filed by a woman against Ethicon, took place on January 10, 2013, with the Honorable Judge Carol E. Higbee presiding.
