Thousands of women suing Bayer over medical issues using Essure

If you’re a person around 40, there are good chances that you’ve used at least one of Bayer’s products: yes, now you recall the Bayer cross logo.

However:

Recently Bayer has been into troubled waters because of one or two products.

As an example, consider Bayer’s Essure: a sterilization implant that helps women evade conception.

As it turns out, this implant does not work as good as it is supposed to do. The problems that women face with this little thing are the pain, cramping, bleeding, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and insomnia, etc.

It is important to know that irrespective of whether you get the implant removed or not, you go through any or all of these issues.

1.      The Essure Lawsuits

When all or most of the women who tried this solution met the same fate, it was obvious what was going to follow: lawsuits.

As per Drugwatcher reports there have been filed as many as 1700 Essure lawsuits against the company the produced it: Bayer.

While a company like Bayer will try to use its influence and then some to cover up the mess, it is clear that within maximum two years, depending on how lawsuits proceed, Bayer will take this implant off the shelves.

As a matter of fact, the FDA has already asked Bayer to restrict the sales of its implant Essure.

Slater and Gordon law firm that operates in UK and Australia lodged a class action law suit against Bayer on behalf of the Australian customers of Essure who had issues like nickel poisoning, allergic reactions and almost all other problems that have been explained above.

Before restricting the product by the FDA, the FDA tried to come up with a solution that could be acceptable to both: Bayer and the plaintiff women.

The solution was to place a black box on the product package, with a warning that the product could cause the type of injuries that I’ve mentioned earlier.

The warning included the fact that the implant can further move to the abdomen or pelvic cavity, causing severe pain and reactions and demanding immediate surgical removal.

2.      About Essure and its Procedure

As we know Essure is a product of Bayer that helps birth control. It is a metal implant and it was brought to the market by Conceptus: a subsidiary of Bayer.

Once this coil is inserted into the fallopian tube it is supposed to be covered by a tissue that comes into existence after the operation.

Why Bayer made something like this? It is because the famous solution to get the tubes tied to avoid conception was a complicated and expensive one.

So:

Bayer comes up with an inexpensive and easy solution, only to make the situation worse for women who used it.

3.      How to Plant the Implant?

The procedure of applying this implant is actually easy as compared to tubal ligation. When it is the time to apply the procedure, a surgeon will make a small incision in the abdomen to cut the fallopian tubes and then Essure can be inserted.

Essure is a set of two small coils that need to be inserted into the fallopian tubes via the vagina. Once they are there, with the passage of time, scar tissues grow around them to make them a part of the body.

This process keeps the coils from moving upwards or downwards, and since they obstruct the fallopian tubes, there remains no chance of conception.

However, this is all in theory. While the implants definitely block the tubes, the tissue growth takes 3 months and before ever it actually happens, the coils either corrode or move upwards.

As a result, women do not get the desired results, but only pain and all sorts of injuries and problems explained above.

While most of Essure implants did not work for the women who got them, as a practice it was suggested by the doctors that a follow-up visit was needed to commence on the end of 3 months’ period from the date when the procedure was applied.

4.      Bayer’s Stance on Essure

While Bayer is fully aware of the problems that many women have faced and still facing because of its implants, it is not willing to take it back that easily.

Bayer decided to halt the sales of Essure back in July 2018, but it pins the problems arising out of the implant on the women who allegedly did not follow the instructions given by the physician.

However:

The plaintiffs claim that not only they were not told anything except to wait for 3 months, they were also not informed of the possible ramifications of the implant.

Back in 2016 – Bayer faced a major setback when a California judge orders to bring roughly 1000 cases together and decided that all of them were to be heard and adjudicated upon from one body.

Following this progress, US District Judge Michael Fitzgerald granted plaintiffs’ motion and rejected the defendants’ stance when he allowed the case to be remanded to Superior Court in Los Angeles.

Bayer has been rather on defensive foot after the proceedings in the court and the FDA’s stance turned out to be against Essure.

Bayer condemned Netflix medical device documentary because of how the documentary depicted the impact of Essure.

Bayer declared the treatment of Essure in said documentary nothing but “inaccurate and misleading”.

5.      Current Situation

In the USA, back in the end of July 2018, Bayer gave in to the pressure of activists, media, FDA and proceedings in court.

They decided to remove the implant off of shelves. However, while in the USA, women badly affected by Essure and activists consider this a victory, in other regions and countries Essure is still engaged in legal proceedings.

In the UK they took Essure off of the shelves, but in Australia, it might take the end of the year 2019, for all these women to see that Essure is finally taken off of the shelves.

Whatever might happen in this continuous scuffle between Bayer and activists as well as victims, the future of Essure is definitely visible.

Even if court proceedings or self-restraint fail to restrict production and selling of this implant, women are already alert and not willing to consider Essure as an acceptable way of birth control.