Anyone who pays regular attention to news reports is familiar with the regular product recalls that occur for defective products sold to consumers. In fact, there is a good chance that most consumers have been part of a product recall at one point in their life, whether for a car part, the children’s toy or other type manufactured product. The sad truth is that companies sometimes simply aren’t aware of the dangers flaws and defects their products until enough consumers have experienced injury or harm as a result of those defects.

Some product defect recalls might seem frivolous or silly when you are watching them on the news but nothing is more serious than the breach of safety and trust product defects create and measures must be taken to remedy the sources and the defects to protect future consumers from harm.

What is an even scarier breach of trust is when medical products are recalled by their consumers. Medical recalls typically harm several individuals before they are resolved as illustrated by the hernia repair mesh recall of 2007.

This hernia repair mesh, which was known as Kugel mesh after the inventor, was manufactured by medical products company called Davol. Davol manufactured this Kugel mesh patch for several years, which was basically a section of woven plastic created to be inserted behind the abdominal wall to strengthen and stabilize it and prevent further hernias from occurring. The mesh was made with a recoil ring inside of it that was designed to make it lie flat against the abdominal muscles once it was inserted into the abdominal cavity.

The recoil ring was the source of all the problems, because it would often break while the mesh was being placed against the abdominal muscles and the doctors inserting it had no way to know that it was broken until months after the surgery occurred. As you can imagine, after several months of existing inside the body, the broken ring and its sharp edges had caused great harm both to the muscles and tissues surrounding it. It would sometimes travel to different parts of the body without causing terrible harm. However, at other times as the ring migrated through the body would scratch, pierce and perforate the internal organs causing fistulas, major infections and, in some cases, death.

This example highlights the potential dangers of any consumer product, medical or otherwise. If you are concerned that you may have been the recipient of a damaged Kugel hernia mesh, then contact a personal injury lawyer immediately to discuss your options and potential compensation.