Cosmetic Treatments Category Archives — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

February 4, 2022

With a ‘Zoom boom’ still going, cautions rise on cosmetic surgery

instruments-300x166 While the coronavirus pandemic has forced patients, doctors, and hospitals to curtail crucial tests, procedures and treatments in worrisome fashion, a trend with one kind of medical practice apparently continues apace: The so-called “Zoom boom” in plastic and cosmetic surgeries is still going strong.

Patients, though, soon will get a tough reality TV warning about the damages that can occur in the costly pursuit of beauty.

For the many who have struggled with illness, as well as professional, personal, and economic hardship during the pandemic, it may be distressing to be reminded of the upswing in elective procedures, ostensibly to improve the aesthetics of patients’ faces and other body parts. But the Los Angeles Times interviewed Drs. Jason Litner and Peyman Solieman to learn why they say their Beverly Hills surgical practices with cosmetic procedures have been busier than ever — or as much as the pandemic allows, as Litner reported:

December 28, 2021

Senator from small, poor state roils big plan to improve U.S. health

by Patrick A. Malone

Record numbers of poor, working poor, and middle-class Americans are signing up to receive federal help to get affordable insurance to safeguard their health and finances. But will congressional politicking cost them this invaluable coverage — just before the nation goes to the polls for midterm elections?

For months now, President Biden and the Democrats have labored to put together a multitrillion-dollar legislative package dealing with the nation’s health needs, climate change, and more. Because Capitol Hill is so riven — among Democrats, as well as between Republicans and Democrats — the ambitious aspirations of those in the party barely in power have needed to be wrapped into a sprawling measure that can sidestep the filibuster and survive a complex legislative maneuver and on to passage.

Let’s be clear that 50 Republicans in the Senate and hundreds of GOP House members have refused to act in any way like American lawmakers, declining at all to work on the package and to sticking to partisan position that Democrats will need by themselves to pass measures needed and popular with voters.

November 14, 2021

$1 trillion invested in ‘infrastructure’ can boost U.S. health and well-being

by Patrick A. Malone

Although the chattering classes may have beat the term infrastructure into a hoary cliché, regular folks may see major benefits over time to their health and well-being from the Biden Administration’s finally passed, bipartisan $1 trillion bill that invests desperately needed money into the nation’s roads, highways, bridges, and more.

The law will send a giant funding surge into improving water quality and eliminating dangerous and antiquated lead pipes. This toxic threat, as evidenced in the mess in Flint, already has resulted in a $600-million-plus settlement — mostly to be paid by the state of Michigan — for residents of the lead-polluted town.

The infrastructure measure will help officials deal with polluting, nerve-wracking, time-sucking transportation logjams, financing repairs and upgrades to public transit, rail, ports, and airports from coast to coast.

November 5, 2021

Women will receive more disclosures about risks of breast implants

by Patrick A. Malone

Federal regulators have toughened the requirements for surgeons and medical device makers to inform women in detail about rising risks associated with breast implants, which also now will carry the government’s sternest warning — a “black box” label cautioning about the products’ potential harms.

The implant alarms, announced after years of complaints by patients, include the Food and Drug Administration’s counseling women that implants carry significant complications and should not be considered long-lasting products, secure for extended periods after surgery. The agency also ordered manufacturers to disclose ingredients used to make the devices.

The FDA, which is seeking public comment on its new oversight, has issued a 22-page document that describes how doctors and makers should discuss with patients the risks of implants.

June 8, 2021

Plaintiffs’ fortitude: It’s an admirable must when battling corporate fat cats

by Patrick A. Malone

While too many of us get overdosed with clownish depictions — from doctors, hospitals, insurers, and corporations, especially Big Pharma firms — of how the civil justice system operates, it’s always worth a reminder of the tremendous fortitude ordinary folks show in pursuing malpractice and other personal injury or liability claims.

Yes, the cases, on rare occasions, can result in sizable favorable rulings for plaintiffs, as the public might be reminded by the U.S. Supreme Court’s new refusal to overturn a $2.1 billion judgment against Johnson & Johnson.

Twenty women sued J&J, asserting its iconic baby powder played a key role in their suffering ovarian cancers.

August 19, 2020

Surgeons prosper anew as primary care doctors and pediatricians struggle

by Patrick A. Malone

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to slam the practice of medicine, with patients’ infection fears and treatment delays putting at serious financial risk the providers of crucial medical services like primary care doctors and pediatricians.

At the same time, as is too often the case in U.S. medicine, the rich may be getting richer, as resuming care gives patients eye-opening information on the big money in orthopedic and plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures.

The coronavirus’s economic shocks may most accelerate changes — not all of them happy for patients — for primary care physicians, who account for half the annual doctor visits annually in this country, the independent, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News service reported.

July 2, 2020

As J&J ‘trims’ talc loss to $2.1 billion, Bayer sees $10-billion-plus Roundup fix

by Patrick A. Malone

Leave it to corporations, even with the pressure of the civil justice system, to figure billions of ways to never say they are sorry — and to leave consumers hanging about problematic products and practices.

Johnson and Johnson just won a pyrrhic victory, prevailing in an appeals court, so a Missouri record $4.69 billion loss now has become $2.1 billion.

That is the sum the court said the company owed women who developed female reproductive cancers after long use of the company’s famed baby powder. J&J insists its product is safe. But the appeals judges, while reducing the award against the conglomerate, also affirmed that J&J knew its talc was tainted with cancer-causing asbestos.

October 27, 2019

As FDA warns of implant perils, new questions arise about 3D mammograms

by Patrick A. Malone

Angry women, anxious that officials were failing to protect their health, besieged a federal Food and Drug Administration hearing in the spring. That unusual outcry may have helped push regulators off their bureaucratic backsides, getting them finally to warn about risks of one of the most commonly used medical devices for women: breast implants.

But will a similar gender uprising be required to quash a rising and dubious medical testing of women, the so-called “3D mammogram?”

The FDA’s sudden, fast stepping on breast implants is occurring after years of inaction. Under new rules proposed by the agency, the devices’ packaging would be required to carry “boxed warnings,” the FDA’s most serious caution. The agency also would call on surgeons to step up their discussions with women about implant risks, including for rare cancers. As the Washington Post reported, doctors also would be told to tell patients:

July 30, 2019

Voluntary recall of textured device raises more alarms about breast implants

by Patrick A. Malone

An Irish medical manufacturer voluntarily withdrew its textured breast implant and related tissue expanding devices from markets after the federal Food and Drug Administration tracked a spike in a rare cancer and deaths tied to the products and asked that they be recalled.

U.S. regulators, the New York Times reported, lagged their European counterparts by almost a year in acting to protect women seeking cosmetic and reconstructive procedures involving the Allergan implant:

“Worldwide, 573 cases and 33 deaths from the cancer have been reported, with 481 of the cases clearly attributed to Allergan Biocell implants, the F.D.A. said. Of the 33 deaths, the agency said its data showed that the type of implant was known in 13 cases, and in 12 of those cases the maker was Allergan.”

March 19, 2019

$29 million jury verdict in talc case underscores need for asbestos regulation

by Patrick A. Malone

Although research has shown that asbestos can cause cancer and other harmful illnesses and the federal government has sought to limit and even ban its use, yet another sizable judgment in a tainted talc case and the discovery of the substance in a popular cosmetics line shows how America’s oversight and regulation of risky materials can be too slow and ineffective.

As the New York Times reported, a jury in the San Francisco area has joined similar deliberative panels in accepting claims that longtime use of Johnson & Johnson baby power causes cancers. The state jury decided that J&J must pay plaintiff Teresa Leavitt a total of $29 million because the company knew its talc was tainted with asbestos but failed to warn her and others. Leavitt, who used the product for three decades, was diagnosed in 2017 with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of internal organs that is associated with asbestos.

The newspaper said the jury told J&J to pay her “$22 million for her pain and suffering, $5 million to compensate her family members, nearly $1.3 million for her medical costs and $1.2 million for her lost wages.”