The Smith & Nephew hip recall may have successfully taken one dangerous device off the market in June, but the battle over the safety of metal on-metal hip implants is far from over.
In addition to the Stryker hip lawsuits, DePuy hip recall lawsuits, and the Biomet M2a Magnum lawsuits that are being filed around the U.S. every day, Smith & Nephew is now facing an equally ugly onslaught of legal problems over its Birmingham hip resurfacing system.
According to an Oct. 15 report in MassDevice.com, the Birmingham hip resurfacing system, which replaces the rounded top section of the thigh bone with a metal cap instead of removing it completely, has reportedly spawned hundreds of patients to file adverse event reports with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Not to mention the thousands of people who have already filed DePuy Pinnacle hip lawsuits, Stryker hip lawsuits, and DePuy ASR lawsuits.
Filed in May 2011, one such report detailed the repeat infections and immobility one patient suffered after receiving the Birmingham Hip Resurfacing implant. The complaint compared the Birmingham hip implant side effects to those associated with the DePuy ASR hip recall, which was issued in August 2010.
“It is possible that pseudo-tumors developed due to metal on metal rubbing together. Was the metal debris released into the bloodstream? These [sic] seem too coincidental to the DePuy case,” the complaint read.
Too coincidental, indeed. An investigation released in Feb. 2012 by the British Medical Journal alerted patients that they should be monitored for signs of metallosis (metal ion poisoning) each year, for as long as they had a metal hip implant.
One month later, in March 2012, The Lancet medical journal asserted that metal-on-metal hip implants should be deemed unsafe for use, given the slew of serious issues associated with their safety.
It is estimated that from 2000-2011, the FDA received a total of 17,000 adverse event reports of complications stemming from metal-on-metal hip implants.
