DePuy ASR Recipients Worldwide Left In The Dark With Regards To A Recall
By August of 2010, DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, issued a major hip replacement recall. Unfortunately, since DePuy officials had no organized means of tracking hip replacement recipients all over the world, the responsibility of informing these patients was left to the orthopedists and surgeons that performed the procedures. It should be expected that since there are an estimated 93,000 hip replacement recipients all around the world, the number of lawsuits filed on behalf of these patients should be almost equal.The number of lawsuits is currently only in the hundreds, but slowly gaining in numbers. This only proves that a significant number of the 93,000 recipients are completely unaware of a recall. Recipients of the ASR device often decide to address the issue by acquiring the help of a lawyer to recover the best lawsuit settlement possible.
The disparity in number of hip replacement recipients versus the number of lawsuits currently filed can be explained. Recipients around the world may have simply moved to another location without leaving any forwarding information with their doctor.This is problematic for a number of reasons. The first problem encountered involves those recipients not experiencing any symptoms of hip replacement failure or metallosis since they may not be seeking the proper medical care they need. Another problem is that the longer these patients withhold having their claim evaluated by a hip replacement lawyer, the less chance they will have to file a claim against DePuy in a timely manner.
Recent studies producing sobering claims against the defective hip devices increases the urgency for recipients to seek a hip replacement lawyer posthaste. Australia and the United Kingdom are two countries that have regulatory artificial joint registries and initially reported that the metal-on-metal devices failed 12 to13 percent of the time after only five years. More recent reports within the past several weeks have shown more ominous statistics with nearly 49 percent of these implants estimated to fail after six years.Ultimately, the majority of these patients will need painful corrective procedures that easily could have been prevented had DePuy been more responsible in designing a better product and initiating a recall of its defective hip replacements earlier.
Thousands of patients worldwide may still be ignorant of a DePuy hip replacement recall. Patients that have received hip replacements in the last several years should determine if it was manufactured by DePuy. If so, these patients should seek immediate legal consultation with an experienced hip replacement lawyer to get proper compensation for any damages they may have suffered.