Sokolove Success Blog – Our Perspective on Legal News that Matters

There’s something wrong about metal on metal.

Just ask the hip-transplant patients whose so-called metal-on-metal (MoM) artificial hips are causing some real problems.

In the last two weeks, The New York Times had three stories on the problems associated with these prosthetics in some patients, including severe tissue and bone damage.  You can check out the stories here, here and here.

Here’s a brief summary.  So-called MoM artificial hips have come under increasing scrutiny as the result of studies showing that the implants generate metallic debris as they wear causing serious health problems that often require replacement of the implant soon after it was inserted.  The problem is so acute, that many leading orthopedic surgeons have cut back on the use of these types of implants, or stopped using them altogether.

Then on March 9th, DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson and Johnson, warned that its ASR implant (which the company recently announced it was pulling from the market because of slow sales) in fact had a high early failure rate in some patients.

As if that’s not bad enough, on March 11, Science Daily reported that a new study found elevated levels of the metals cobalt and chromium in the offspring of patients with MoM hip implants.  The study concluded that there is a correlation between cobalt and chromium levels in the mother and those in her infant at the time of delivery.

So in a nutshell:  metal-on-metal is not a good thing.  The metal can grind away at itself causing early failure, and possibly even impacting unborn children if mothers had a MoM hip implanted.  What’s worse, there seems to be some evidence that manufacturers may have known about some of these risks and waited too long to report them, or to pull products from shelves.

We’ll continue to monitor these developments and if legal issues emerge, we’ll be prepared to help people who may have suffered as a result.