http://www.depuyhipreplacementlawsuit.com/ Medical Experts said that the DePuy Articular Surface Replacement (ASR) hip systems should have been recalled immediately when complaints on metal-on-metal hip implants started increasing. Medical experts from Australia said that the DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. and its mother company Johnson & Johnson recalled its hip implants only three years after evidence first started coming out that the hip implants had a high failure rate. As a result, Johnson & Johnson had toreimburse thousands to Australians in recall claims.

1. As Published on the DePuy Hip Replacement Recall Website

2. Medical Experts said that the DePuy Articular Surface Replacement (ASR) hip systems should have been recalled immediately when complaints on metal-on-metal hip implants started increasing. Medical experts from Australia said that the DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. and its mother company Johnson & Johnson recalled its hip implants only three years after evidence first started coming out that the hip implants had a high failure rate. As a result, Johnson & Johnson had toreimburse thousands to Australians in recall claims.

3. The recall of the two DePuy hip implants was first done in Australia in 2009 with the United States and Europe following suit in August of 2010. The recall was implemented when the National Joint Registry (NJR) of England and Wales released the data taken from its study which suggested that the five-year failure rate of this product was approximately 13 percent. Some medical experts claim that this data have been available since 2006.

4. Aside from the data which stated that the ASR hip implants also had a higher than normal failure rate, Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopaedics also said in March of 2010 that it will phase out the devices because of declining sales. The design of the hip implant was said to be the culprit why the device fails five years after it has been implanted. By designing a shallower cup and removing the plastic liner from the inside of the implant, DePuy had intended for patients to have a wider range of motion. Instead, cobalt and chromium particles wear off from the device caused by the friction of the ball portion of the hip implant against the socket and fall into the soft tissue surrounding the implant area, leading to complications.

5. Now, evidence suggested that the revision rate is at 25 percent, and as more of the devices fail, some experts predict that within six years, it could reach up to 49 percent. An affected patient must undergo a revision surgery to remove the defective hip implant. DePuy is not willing to pay a full compensation, although it vowed to compensate affected patients for their revision surgery. A full compensation would include the pain and suffering, emotional suffering and financial loss as a result of having the defective implant, aside from the revision surgery cost.

6. The DePuy hip replacement recall sparked the filing of thousands of lawsuits and complaints. All cases filed across the country was transferred to the Northern District of Ohio and, with the consent of that court, assigned Honorable David A. Katz to handle it for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings last December 2010 as based on the ruling filed by the US Judicial Panel on MultiDistrict Litigation (MDL. The ASR hip replacement was allegedly defectively designed and that DePuy knew that there were problems with the implant early on but didn't do anything to let patients or their surgeons know about the possible problems, the lawsuits claimed.