Blighted lives

This newspaper has reported for years on the unfolding public health scandal involving metal-on-metal hip implants. An estimated 56,000 Britons have been fitted with the devices even though the risks they posed were evident more than 20 years ago. For some time, recipients have been reporting illnesses thought to be linked to the release into the bloodstream of toxic particles.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has now updated advice last issued five years ago after the side-effects from the hips were found to be far more poisonous than was previously thought. All patients with the metal hips are being urged to undergo X-rays and blood tests to check for levels of cobalt and chromium which can cause soft tissue and bone damage.

The MHRA says that “the majority of patients … currently have well-functioning hips”. But their new medical advice alert states that there remains “a risk of adverse soft tissue reaction to particulate debris” and “early detection of these events should give a better revision outcome should this becomes necessary”.

The problem is that more than five years after the first alert this hardly constitutes “early detection”. Although some patients have long been monitored for toxic build-ups and may have had their hips replaced, greater urgency should have been shown by the authorities. We reported recently how the manufacturers were advised in 1995 that the devices were prone to a “catastrophic breakdown”. Indeed, this whole saga has been marked out by a failure to face up to the fact that a serious medical blunder appears to have occurred that has blighted the lives of thousands of people.