As more women are experiencing serious problems with the Paragard IUD, lawsuits against the manufacturer are mounting. One such lawsuit was filed last week in New York.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff had the device implanted in June 2017. In September, the same year, she went to have it removed after an ultrasound showed it moved out of place. Her physician tried to remove the device following Teva’s instructions, but a part of the device broke off, resulting in surgery to have the remaining part of the device removed. Johnson filed the suit claiming that she suffered a range of injuries, including loss of reproductive health, pain, suffering, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life, on top of the medical bills.
The lawsuit also claims that Teva amplified the benefits of the device and knew or should have known about its defects based on trials, third-party studies, and consumer experience and complaints. The lawsuit also names the Cooper Companies and a subsidiary as defendants, as they purchased the rights to the ParaGard in September 2017.
The complaint indicated that more than 1,600 cases of the ParaGard breaking were reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), out of those more than 700 were deemed serious.
Since market introduction, the manufacturers of Paragard have touted the fact that the contraceptive device is hormone-free. ParaGard is a small, plastic T-shaped intrauterine device placed in the uterus to provide long-term prevention of pregnancy until it is removed, which is done after twelve years or earlier. It is manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals. The device utilizes copper to induce an inflammatory reaction, thus preventing fertilization and pregnancy. Paragard is inserted through the cervical opening in a process that only takes only a few minutes. The company’s website indicates that it has fewer side effects than other methods of birth control, but does not mention complications that many women have had. These dangers include: breakage, perforation of internal organs, uterine damage, ectopic pregnancy, and migration which is what happened in the case that was most recently filed in New York.
In July 2019, the FDA sent a letter to the manufacturers of Paragard warning the company to cease its aggressive marketing tactics that minimize the dangers of Paragard.
Our law firm,Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo Plotkin & Hellman, has successfully litigated cases against manufacturers of defective medical devices, and are currently speaking with women injured through the use of Paragard IUD. I am investigating Paragard IUD lawsuits and am speaking with women who have been negatively impacted by Paragard. Our firm has aggressively represented clients and has recovered over $2 billion in medical malpractice, mass tort, personal injury, and product liability cases.
