Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuits Go Global, as New Zealanders, Australians Sign on to Class Action

A New Zealand woman recently became the first in her country to join a mesh lawsuit that seeks compensation for alleged victims of transvaginal mesh complications. According to 3 News, the class action complaint was originally filed in the U.S. on behalf of dozens of Australian women, but was recently opened up to New Zealanders.

The plaintiff, who received her mesh implant in 2004 during a hysterectomy, told 3 News of her ordeal during a report that aired on July 2^nd.

“I was limping all the time and then I just stopped doing anything because I was in so much pain. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t even really be a mother to my children. I couldn’t be a wife,” she explained.

Since her 2004 surgery, the plaintiff has been unable to stand or sit for long periods of time. She now spends much of her time lying down.

According to the report, the New Zealand and Austrian plaintiffs are suing for injuries allegedly caused by hundreds of devices manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon unit, Coloplast Corp, Boston, Bard and American Medical Systems.

More than 20,000 Transvaginal Mesh Lawsuits Filed in U.S.

This class action complaint will join more than 20,000 individual transvaginal mesh lawsuits now pending in courts around the country. Separate multidistrict litigations are already underway in U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia, for lawsuits involving the same manufacturers. The proceedings’ first trial, involving a C.R. Bard product, did get underway earlier this month. But it came to a premature end when a mistrial was declared.

Thousands of similar mesh lawsuits are also pending in state courts. In March, the plaintiff in the nation’s first Ethicon mesh lawsuit trial was awarded more than $11 million in damages when a New Jersey jury found that the company failed to warn her about the risks associated with its Gynecare Prolift device.

Women in all of these lawsuits allege the products were defectively designed, and accuse their manufacturers of failing to provide adequate warnings regarding the risk of mesh erosion and other complications. An attorney for the Australian plaintiff told 3 News that some estimates place failure rates for transvaginal mesh at around 20 percent.

“So I guess what’s struck us is how many women out there have been implanted with surgical mesh and who are suffering with these dreadful injuries and don’t know how widespread the problem,” the lawyer said.

Victims of Vaginal Mesh Complications Urged to Consider a Mesh Lawsuit

Bernstein Liebhard LLP is already representing hundreds of U.S. women in similar mesh lawsuits, and continues to urge the victims of these injuries to consider filing their own claims. To learn more about the legal options that might be available to you, please give our firm a call at .