Op-Ed - J&J Visits the White House for Women's Summit!

Tweet from J&J day at the White House

Mesh Medical Device News Desk, June 14, 2016 ~ Johnson & Johnson (J&J) strives to live up to its creed everyday. The following is an Op-Ed by the editor of MND who has sat in a number of trials watching the company in its support of women.

The J&J Credo is that its first responsibility is to "the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services."...It goes on," We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well. We must be good citizens- support good works and charities and bear our fair share of taxes..." Read more here.

"At Johnson & Johnson, we believe family comes first......."

It is with this pile of hollow, hurtful words that Johnson and Johnson Chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky joined President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House today for the first United States of Women Summit.

Topics included economic empowerment, gender equality, health and wellness and educational opportunities for women.

I think of the women injured by mesh. Empowered? No, stripped of their humanity would be more accurate. Economically, many have lost their homes, the homes they worked for. Educational opportunities? Most mesh injured women can hardly hold jobs must less pursue an education. Gender equality? Both men and women are adversely affected by polypropylene mesh made by J&J.

Linda Gross in NJ trial, Feb 2013, Implanted with Prolift

Health and wellness? The pages of Mesh News Desk and the thousands of women online are a testament to the attack on their health by an untested experimental medical device. The fact that the company has more pelvic mesh product liability lawsuits than any other is a testament to its credo. The fact that it continues to pay deep pocketed law firms thousands of dollars an hour to fight injured women and families in court is another testament to the humanity of this company and its credo.

"...we believe families come first"

J&J Shareholders meeting protest 2014

J&J is the same company that rushed the Prolift to market without any notification to the FDA. It didn't think it had to. Polypropylene suture was already approved and the Prolift was just a lot of suture threads, right? J&J is the same company that failed to re-issue its Instructions for Use when one of its own scientists said the warnings were insufficient. The pamphlet had already come back from the printer, we'll get it next time, the company said.

J&J conveniently destroyed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents pertaining to mesh litigation even when there was a hold on those documents. Sweep clean any executive hard drives when they got reassigned, as they often did.

J&J is the same company behind one of the power morcellators that grind and spread an aggressive form of uterine cancer and body powder that's now the focus of litigation by women with cancers or the family members they left behind. Washington State and California just launched a probe into fraudulent marketing by J&J of its pelvic mesh products.

Protest in Charleston WV fed court

The public relations division of J&J can gloss over those facts during a Woman's summit but to state J&J has "an extensive history of supporting women and mothers worldwide..." is almost more than anyone can take. Think of the children who no longer have mothers who can care for them or grandmothers who can pick them up. Here is the agenda.

When J&J and its Ethicon division finally agrees to settle outstanding mesh cases, about 50,000 at last count in the U.S. alone, with a lifetime of care, that will be one important way to address the State of Women who had no choice in the use of its pelvic mesh products. #