The idea of implanting pelvic mesh for pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence may sound somewhat sensible; but the application and reality are not. The idea of mesh is that it is easier to install than it is to simply suture, as was done for 50 years, before a man had a notion to sew plastic into a woman’s vagina. And because plastic mesh is easier to install than to apply the tried-and-true suture method, more doctors can be trained to install it, doctors who might not otherwise have the surgical skills to perform the more invasive and difficult suturing method. Therefore, mesh looks like a good idea. It sounds good, and apparently it even works – at least for a time – very well in many women. The problem is that we can now see a transvaginal mesh catastrophe destroying the lives of thousands of women.
Elephant in the Room
The big, glaring problem, the one that women are not being warned about, is that when the plastic mesh fails to work as intended, the results can be catastrophic. The mesh can migrate and embed improperly in tissue and organs. When that happens, it can prove impossible to safely remove. It can leave a woman in permanent, crippling pain for the rest of her life. This happens, and it happens all the time. Some 80,000 pelvic mesh cases have now been filed in the West Virginia MDL, which has become the biggest multi-district litigation court in the nearly 50-year history of MDL courts.
Three Warnings for Plastic Vaginal Mesh
This is what a proper plastic mesh warning needs to read. This is information that every woman deserves to be given before she chooses to be implanted with plastic mesh:
1. “This mesh could completely fail to fix the problem it was intended to fix, and it could leave you in permanent, debilitating pain for the rest of your life. This plastic transvaginal mesh could cause a catastrophe in your life. It could cause irreversible nerve damage leaving you in permanent, debilitating pain for the rest of your life. Once the mesh is implanted, surgeons may never be able to remove all of it, which can also lead to permanent, debilitating pain for the rest of your life.”
And this warning needs to be added to plastic mesh:
2. “The original manufacturer of the material which constitutes this mesh product has stated that it is not to be used in the human body. The maker has stated that this product can have proven carcinogenic effects. Plastic/Polypropylene is a potential carcinogen, and it is not inert. No plastic material is 100 percent inert.”
3. Nearly 100,000 women have now filed lawsuits in state and federal courts claiming that the plastic mesh implanted in them has failed to help their problem and is now causing them pain.
These three warnings BELONG on every pelvic mesh experiment performed on women. If you put these three warnings on each plastic mesh product, and instruct implanting doctors that they also need to read these three warnings to each and every woman before she consents to being implanted with a plastic mesh product, it would then be acceptable to implant it. Everyone knows nothing is perfect, but every human being picked as a candidate for a medical implant deserves and has the right to know the negative consequences of that implant in the event that it should fail.
