Indeed, suffering from a major disease is disheartening. This holds true for the victims of the product recall that was issued by DePuy Orthopaedics on its two brands of metal hip implants: the ASR XL Acetabular System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System. Since 2003, DePuy has sold over 93,000 hip implants in the United States alone. When the recipients of the implants started to complain about pain, weakness and movement difficulties, the FDA intervened, and so the DePuy hip recall started. What the victims are going through right now is way beyond imagination, so they opted for the smart thing to do: to file a lawsuit against DePuy. In fact, an
orthopedist, also a co-developer of the ASR implants, was sued.
Recently, a recipient of a DePuy hip implant pressed charges against Dr. Thomas Schmalzried, an Orthopedist based in California who worked with DePuy Orthopaedics to co-develop the line of ASR devices. Several of these implants turned out to be defective, having a 12% failure rate and the potential to affect 1 in every 8 recipients. The plaintiff claims that Dr. Schmalzried committed a breach in his duty by receiving a huge royalty sum from DePuy, and by not informing him of his affiliation with the company.
Normally, doctors are not a significant part of the lawsuit, as far as the complaints are concerned. However, this case regarding Dr. Schmalzried may be a special exception, because he actually contributed from the development of the defective implants, down to their implantation into the hip joints of the recipients. He might have been well aware of the devices’ high probability to fail.
You might not trust any doctor now, but you still need to see your physician if you have received an implant that has been affected by the
DePuy hip recall. Hip recall lawyers will strongly advise you to consult another doctor to get a second opinion.
