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

June 8, 2021

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

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.”

December 17, 2018

Johnson & Johnson hid knowledge of talc’s taint with asbestos, reports say

by Patrick A. Malone

Johnson & Johnson, now facing thousands of lawsuits asserting ties between its famed baby powder and patients’ cancers, has campaigned for decades to keep from wide public view information that its talc was tainted with asbestos, a naturally occurring substance and an established cause of some cancers, news media reports say.

Reuters news service published its investigation of J&J’s long efforts to deny and downplay scientific evidence it had about asbestos in a product that has helped to create and define the company as one of the nation’s family friendly consumer product and pharmaceutical giants.

Tens of millions of Americans grew up, with grown-ups dusting them as infants with Johnson’s baby powder, now contributing just “$420 million to J&J’s $76.5 billion in revenue last year,” Reuters reported.

June 28, 2018

No surgery is free of risks or complications, as breast reconstruction study reminds

by Patrick A. Malone

Cancer and surgery — it’s little wonder that even the most resilient patients can buckle a bit when their doctors talk to them about these two issues together and urgently. That’s why new research may be valuable to women with breast cancer, providing them with better evidence-based insight about challenges in their reconstructive options.

The information, which experts said surprised them and may change their views on frequently performed procedures, yet again underscores that surgery can carry significant risks and complications.

In fact, 1 in 3 women who undergo cancer-related breast reconstructive surgery develops a postoperative complication over the next two years, 1 in 5 requires more surgery, and in 1 in 20 of cases, reconstruction fails, the New York Times reported of the published findings of medical researchers, most from the University of Michigan.

June 20, 2018

Lasik surgery: a study in medical risks, complications, lack of official followup

by Patrick A. Malone

Caveat emptor, federal officials are reminding patients anew about an eye surgery that tens of millions of Americans already have undergone and all too many may believe ── wrongly ── is all but risk-free.

In fact, significant numbers of the 9.5 million Americans who had laser-assisted operations, the so-called Lasik procedure, may show vision improvements, but they also may be under-reporting problems connected with their surgeries, the New York Times reported.

The federal Food and Drug Administration approved Lasik in the 1990s, but the agency only recently has supported the gold-standard of medical research, a randomized clinical trial, to check in on long-running complaints about the surgery.

January 18, 2018

President O? Let’s first look hard at her role in hyping health humbug

by Patrick A. Malone

Oprah Winfrey’s recent rousing broadcast speech — both in accepting an entertainment industry group’s lifetime achievement award and denouncing sexism and sexual harassment in Hollywood — also opened the door to a reconsideration of how this talented, smart, accomplished, powerful, and wealthy celebrity icon long has helped to foster a barrage of health and medical humbug, spreading it far and wide in popular culture.

As Stat, a health and information site, recapped about Winfrey:

She connected a cancer patient to ‘junk science,’ a Washington Post analysis says. She promoted charlatans on her show, according to Slate. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee put out a statement … attacking Winfrey for ‘giving a platform to anti-vaccination campaigners and other dangerous health quackery.’