Four Corners Segment Bares Shocking Report On ASR Hip Surgery

Higher-than-normal levels of cobalt have been found among the failed implants in Australia, which reportedly had patients prone of being poisoned by toxicity, according to the NBC news website.

The Metal toxicity is being construed as a medical scandal based on the disclosures featured on the Four Corners program, a special presentation for video, extended analysis, and background information of ABC News.

The NBC News website states that the Four Corners aired an investigative report on the hip implants, which displays an upsetting proof of possible impairment.

Pathology labs have documented much higher levels of cobalt than previously measured, it adds, raising hints that the presence of metal bits carries with it the potential for toxic effects in the worst-affected patients. The widespread series of toxic effects includes blindness, deafness, seizures, cognitive problems, and heart failure.

The outrage involves defective prostheses, which is also considered as the biggest disaster in the history of orthopaedics. This has caused hundreds of patients who ran the risk of being poisoned and who had totally been inactivated.

This study may quickly tip to variations in the way medical devices are approved for use in Australia. Although, the New York Daily News says that baby boomers are fuelling the need for more knee and hip replacement surgeries.

The Four Corners segment discloses that South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon will be requesting for a Senate inquiry into the approval process for medical devices such as the articular surface replacement (ASR) hip, which did not undergo clinical trials as part of its valuation.

The DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of the Johnson & Johnson healthcare realm, was mass-produced and promoted the ASR hip.

There have been calls for an inquiry into the regulation of Australia's $4 billion medical devices industry following the recall of the faulty hip that left hundreds of Australians in unbearable pain.

The Four Corners scrutiny over exploring the circumstances which may have led to last year's global recall of the DePuy ASR hip joint. Experts in the United Kingdom and in Australia say that for many years they had warned DePuy and Johnson & Johnson that the device was failing.

DePuy gives out a global recall of the hip prosthetics in 2010 after voluntarily withdrawing it from Australia in 2009. Statistic shows that up to 93,000 patients globally got the implants, and about 5,500 of them were Australians.

This year the US regulators in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote the manufacturers of metal-on-metal hip prostheses, demanding that they study patients who have received their devices.

The call echoed public concerns appealing that the joints may be leeching potentially toxic metal ions and has acted upon of aiming to lower the number of patients filing Pinnacle Lawsuit.