In February 2010, Frédéric Simon had a metal-to-metal hip prosthesis from Smith and Nephew. For three years, he suffered excruciating pain, nausea, weight loss and sleep. “I feel like I’ve been poisoned by my prosthesis. She made me suffer too much. I have the impression that this object amputated my life. I was flabbergasted because no one had warned me of the danger,” he testified in the daily Le Parisien.
When he goes to his doctor, he finds that his cobalt level (the metal that makes up the prosthesis) reaches 4.2 mg per liter of blood.
“When I went to consult other surgeons to have the prosthesis removed, several told me that they had doubts about these metal prostheses”, explains Frédéric Simon to the Parisian.
In 2014, he had his rusty prosthesis removed and replaced with a new ceramic one.
“In truth, as early as 2010, the global recall of metal-on-metal hip prostheses by the American company DePuy sounded the death knell for this technology. However, not only certain manufacturers, such as Smith & Nephew, had continued to market these prostheses, but above all this marketing had been done with the approval of the health authorities, “explains his lawyer, Laurent Gaudon, who specializes in public health affairs the patient’s lawyers, to AFP.
Consequently, “I summon before the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Bobigny, the National Medicines Safety Agency, but also the company manufacturing the prosthesis, Smith and Nephew, and the Primary Health Insurance Fund” and “I request the setting up of a judicial expertise responsible for ruling on the effects of the metal prosthesis and the damages” for my client. The hearing is scheduled for June 4.
ANSM’s response
The ANSM recalls on its website that it published a warning in December 2014 to the attention of orthopedic surgeons “on the use of total hip prostheses with a metal-metal friction couple. This warning completes and updates the recommendations issued by the Agency previously in 2012”.
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