The pelvic mesh industry led by Johnson & Johnson is producing the most dangerous product for women in the U. S. and beyond
How is it possible that a dangerous, ineffective product that has injured hundreds of thousands of women is still being manufactured and surgically implanted in women today?
The pelvic mesh industry, led by the multinational device manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, knew the potential dangers of pelvic mesh, including the possibility of severe and life-altering complications for consumers, but that didn’t stop them from continually pushing the product. The company was never required to conduct safety and efficacy tests on the products, nor were any safety and efficacy tests ever conducted. Instead, they developed and marketed pelvic mesh implants to maximize their profits at the expense of the health and safety of women across the U.S. and beyond.
In March, the advocacy group Corporate Action Network launched a campaign called Johnson & Johnson Hurts Women to hold Johnson & Johnson and its Chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky accountable for hurting hundreds of thousands of women with faulty pelvic mesh implants that were never proven to be safe, effective, or necessary in the first place. Corporate Action Network, in conjunction with survivors and allied groups, is demanding that Johnson & Johnson stop making this dangerous product and help the women it has seriously injured.
Since then, survivors of pelvic mesh implants and the Corporate Action Network have demanded a criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder into Chairman Gorsky, who oversaw Ethicon, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that manufactures pelvic mesh, before becoming Johnson & Johnson’s CEO, and other top Johnson & Johnson executives for the destruction of corporate documents pertaining to the safety and efficacy of pelvic mesh. Within 24 hours, the Department of Justice publicly stated it is reviewing that request.
During the most recent Johnson & Johnson Annual Shareholder Meeting, injured women addressed Chairman Gorsky, telling their heart-wrenching stories both directly to the CEO and to 1,800 company stakeholders.
Mesh survivor and advocate Teresa Sawyer told shareholders, “the choice of keeping the mesh on the market is hurting women.”
Outside of the meeting, survivors and advocates held a press conference to explain why they traveled from across the country to face Johnson & Johnson in person.
“I’m not the woman I once was, not the mother, not the wife,” said 37-year-old mesh survivor Estelle Tasz of Pittsburgh, so distraught that she was unable to finish her sentence.
Just days after these actions at the shareholder meeting, the FDA proposed orders to reclassify pelvic mesh as a ‘high-risk’ device. After just six weeks of campaigning, the public pressure was mounting to help ensure that no more women should suffer from pelvic mesh.
Today, the movement against Johnson & Johnson is gaining momentum. Survivors organized by the Corporate Action Network are forming pelvic mesh survivor networks in all 50 states and asking state Attorneys General to investigate Alex Gorsky and Johnson & Johnson for the destruction of documents as well as for possible fraud for manufacturing, marketing, and continuing to sell a product they know is defective.
Click here to join the Corporate Action Network’s effort to hold Johnson & Johnson accountable for hurting hundreds of thousands of women with reckless business practices and dangerous mesh products. Mesh stands to create one of the largest public health crises in history, all for the benefit of satisfying shareholders. With your help and the support of the thousands of women who have survived painful pelvic mesh implants, we can show CEO Alex Gorsky and Johnson & Johnson that women’s health should never come second to profits.
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ABOUT JANE AKRE
Jane Akre has been a reporter since 1980 and has worked in newsrooms around the country as a broadcast journalist, anchor and medical/consumer reporter. She most recently sued News Corp for news distortion and won the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2001 with her former husband for exposing problems with Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone. Akre’s story was featured in the Canadian documentary, The Corporation (2004). In 2011, Akre started Mesh Medical Device News Desk to expose corporate wrongdoing related to pelvic mesh products that have caused injuries to thousands of women across the country. The website has since become the leading news and information center about the regulatory, medical and personal stories surrounding mesh and the injuries it causes. Akre and Courter films are currently at work on a documentary on the issue entitled “Enmeshed~ The Real Women of Adverse Events."