DePuy Orthopaedics, Trident PSL and Hemispherical Acetabular, and Zimmer Holdings have all issued joint implant recalls in recent years. In many cases, it took years of reports of failing prosthesis for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to even issue a recall. So what is the United States doing to ensure these long recalls don’t happen in the future?
Some experts say a national joint registry would solve some of the gaps the U.S. has with tracking performance statistics and speeding up a recall. As a North Charleston personal injury lawyer , I think something has to be done to ensure a quicker recall process.
The American Joint Replacement Registry, a non-profit, is working to collect data on joint implants, but unfortunately the data would not be available until 2010. As a personal injury lawyer, I’m glad to see someone is doing something about better tracking.
In the past, Medicare has refused to assist with a national joint registry because of the lack of resources for data collection, and other have questioned the source of initial and long-term funding for such programs.
As a Charleston hip implant recall attorney , I think it’s important to find a way to issue quicker recalls on joint implants and to ensure their safety before faulty joint are implanted in patients. The pain and suffering visited on consumers whose hips fail as well as the spiraling costs of those failures could be addressed easily and effectively with a coherent national record-keeping system.