FURY OVER DODGY HIP IMPLANTS
Firm was warned about ‘toxic’ device
BRITISH patients were given hip implants despite the firm that made them being told they were unsafe, it emerged yesterday.
Up to 20,000 people were fitted with DePuy’s device even though there were fears it could release toxic metal particles into the bloodstream.
Yesterday, previously unseen papers revealed that a DePuy engineer warned in 1995 that parts of the Pinnacle implant were prone to “catastrophic breakdown”.
The devices continued to be used until 2010 and thousands of people had to endure further surgery due to complications.
The documents were read out in a court in Texas, where patients are suing the firm over the implant.
Tory MP Andrew Selous, of the Commons Health Select Committee, described the revelation as appalling.
He added: “If the company was aware of problems, they should have acted on the precautionary principle.” The court heard that Dr Graham Isaac, a senior engineer based in DePuy’s Leeds factory, raised concerns in a 1995 report. He said testing showed metal implants were “as unpredictable as ever, working well for a time before suffering a sudden catastrophic breakdown of the bearing surface, accompanied by a release of a large volume of debris”. From 2008, Tony Nargol, a surgeon based on Teesside, repeatedly raised concerns with DePuy but was told the high level of metal in his patients’ blood may be due to a “water supply problem”. Boz Michalowska Howells, a lawyer representing more than 300 British claims, said it “appeared to be commonly known in the 1990s that metal-on-metal hips could cause adverse reactions and it should have rung alarm bells”. A spokesman for DePuy, owned by US-based Johnson & Johnson, said it “acted appropriately and responsibly in the design and testing” of the Pinnacle.