Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

As a result of an extraordinary amount of product failure, damage to health, lawsuits, and product recalls, the United States Food and Drug Administration has ordered manufacturers of metal on metal artificial hips to study them and report back. In early May letters were sent to 20 manufacturers of a popular class of hip implants requiring them to determine whether patients experience effects from the shedding of the material due to the fact that there have been numerous reports claimed of soft tissue damage and excessive levels of metal in the blood stream as a result of metal shavings coming off on a hip’s head due to metal upon metal contact and movement.

The FDA claims that it is not concerned about any particular manufacturer’s product at this time but rather the types of implants as a group. Approximately 250,000 artificial hips are implanted each year in America and approximately 1/3 of the 250,000 are metal upon metal versions. Metal upon metal devices have been manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, DePuy, Stryker, Zimmer, and Biomet. DePuy has recalled its popular ACR system in March which is made of a colbalt-chrome molybdenum alloy with a porous coating following a couple of previous Johnson & Johnson recalls. Experts claim that this situation is not unique to Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy implant product. Experts claim that they have known for some time that metal particles around implants can cause damage of bone and/or tissue surrounding an implant and joint.