June 25, 2011 – In the Health section of today’s edition of the New York Times, columnist Barry Meier points out that Americans’ “impulse to covet the new and improved” may be at the root of the DePuy Hip Recall.  (“In Medicine, New Isn’t Always Improved”)

While stopping far short of blaming the patients themselves for problems caused by DePuy metal-on-metal artificial hips, the article examines how medical improvements can be marketed as a panacea when data suggest their application should be limited to a certain class of patients.

Further, in this rush to have the “latest and greatest” technology, earlier studies questioning the effectiveness, and pointing out risks, are often ignored.

Readers will likely be shocked to learn that the Food and Drug Administration did NOT require clinical trials for most metal-on-metal hip implant devices.  The DePuy hip recall, however, has prompted changes within the FDA on this and other issues.

The surgeon I chose to perform my bilateral hip replacement surgery in 2010, Dr. Lawrence Dorr, is credited in the article for first calling public attention to the problem when some of his patients began to complain and required replacement operations.

Since the DePuy Hip Recall was initiated about nine months before my surgery in 2010, I feel fortunate at this point to have dodged a major catastrophic bullet in my own life.

The DePuy ASR Hip Recall continues to be a very serious matter in which our firm has a very personal interest.  We will persist in monitoring developments in this matter closely.