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Mark & Associates, P.C., a law firm representing victims of defective medical devices, is investigating reports of defective Zimmer Durom Cup artificial hip devices. The firm has been contacted by numerous patients whose Durom Cup hip replacements have failed and caused them to undergo a second hip replacement surgery. Patients and families of patients who suffered from defective Zimmer Durom Cup hip replacement devices are encouraged to request a free legal consultation at www.ZimmerHipLawsuit.com or by calling 1-866-50-RIGHTS (1-866-507-4448).

The Durom Cup went on the market in 2006 and has been implanted in over 12,000 patients. Dr. Lawrence Dorr, an orthopedic surgeon in California who has performed over 5,000 hip replacements, warned Zimmer Holdings in 2007 about pain and other problems his patients were experiencing after hip replacement surgery. In April 2008, Dr. Dorr voiced similar concerns to his colleagues at a conference and quickly discovered that other doctors and their patients had similar experiences. When doctors complained to Zimmer, they were largely told that the implantation technique, not the device, was to blame.

In May, Zimmer announced to doctors that it was investigating complaints like Dr. Dorr’s. On July 22, 2008, Zimmer Holdings suspended sales of its Durom Cup hip replacement, citing the need for doctor training before it reintroduces the device. But many doctors disagree that the implantation technique is to blame and believe that the poor design of the Durom Cup is the reason that the device is failing in such a large number of patients.

Problems with the Zimmer Durom Cup involve the hip socket separating from the bone rather than fusing with it. The metal cup’s movement in the socket was causing extreme pain in some patients after hip replacement surgery. Doctors estimate that potentially hundreds of patients who received a Zimmer Durom Cup replacement hip will experience failure and need a second hip replacement surgery to replace the defective device.

Mark & Associates, P.C. condones the withdrawal of Zimmer’s Durom Cup hip replacement but believes that retraining doctors on implantation techniques will be ineffective and that the defective device should remain off the market permanently. The firm also believes that Zimmer Holdings is failing to take responsibility for poor design of the hip replacement device by blaming doctors for improper implantation techniques. The firm strongly supports the creation of a national artificial joint registry system, which would allow for identification of problems with artificial joints sooner and save countless patients from needless pain, suffering, and the risks associated with additional replacement surgeries.

Mark & Associates, P.C. encourages patients who experienced problems following hip replacement surgery to request a free legal consultation immediately. To learn more information about Zimmer Holdings’ Durom Cup hip replacement and to request a free consultation, please visit http://www.ZimmerHipLawsuit.com. For more information on Mark & Associates, P.C. please visit http://www.YouHaveRights.com.

About Mark & Associates, P.C.

Mark & Associates, P.C. is a leading products liability and personal injury law firm with offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Long Island, New York. The firm aggressively represents victims of defective pharmaceuticals and medical devices, dangerous consumer products, bad faith insurance denials, toxic exposure and serious auto and common carrier accidents.

CONTACT: Mark & Associates, P.C.
Jason Mark, Esq.
1-866-507-4448
info@youhaverights.com

Over the past several months, the FDA has been contemplating weather or not physicians should be required to undergo special education in order to prescribe powerful narcotics.

“I think it is a good idea, and it is something we are considering,” said Dr. Bob Rappaport, the director of the division of Anesthesia, Analgesia and Rheumatology Products at the FDA. But the agency itself does not have the authority to take such a step, Dr. Rappaport said.

Typically, state medical boards, rather than the federal government, impose licensing requirements on doctors, including the type of continuing education they must receive. A few states, including California, now provide doctors with education about the treatment of pain patients. But nationally, state medical boards have shown little interest in mandating added training in the use of potent pain medications or in screening patients for those prone to drug abuse.

Pain experts say they support increased education for doctors, but some fear that mandatory training may harm pain patients by limiting the number of doctors prescribing such drugs.

Under existing federal law, doctors need only show they are licensed to practice medicine in order to register with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which will permit them to prescribe narcotics.

An exception is if a doctor wants to prescribe the drug buprenorphine as in-office treatment for narcotics addiction; federal rules require eight hours of specialized training first. Prescribing that same drug for pain treatment, however, does not require such training.

Dr. Rappaport said the FDA was most concerned about potent and longer-acting narcotics like methadone, fentanyl and certain formulations of the drug oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin.

With methadone, fentanyl, which is available in patches, has been associated with patient deaths and injuries resulting from physician misprescribing or inadvertent patient misuse.

In recent years, the FDA has faced pressure to take added steps on such drugs. Dr. Rappaport said recommending additional education was one of the responses the agency might unveil by early next year.

He said the FDA would probably require that makers of such drugs develop programs to monitor how they are prescribed.

In the last two years, the agency has sent out alerts to doctors about both methadone and fentanyl, but officials acknowledged that preventable patient deaths were continuing.

“We are putting out communications,” said Dr. Gerald Dal Pan, who directs the FDA office of surveillance and epidemiology. “We don’t know why they are failing.”

On August 14, 2008, a gigantic support leg of a 30-story-tall crane once used to build ships collapsed as it was being dismantled at Fore River Shipyard, killing an iron worker. It was the third death in three years resulting from a crane failure at the shipyard. Four additional ironworkers suffered minor injuries when the support leg gave way beneath the crane, nicknamed Goliath, which has loomed over the shipyard for 33 years.

“This is just a very sad day here in Quincy,” Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said during an afternoon press conference at the shipyard. “It’s a sad day when a landmark has become a tragic memorial.”

“It did collapse in the manner it was designed to collapse,” Quincy Fire Chief Joseph Barron said at the press conference. “It just did not collapse when it was supposed to, obviously.”

The collapse did not affect the structural stability of the rest of the crane, Barron said.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration dispatched three inspectors to the scene. The federal inspectors are trying to determine the cause of the collapse and whether any workplace safety rules were violated by the workers or companies involved, OSHA spokesman Ted Fitzgerald said. The investigation could take several months to complete, he said.

The collapse of the support leg sent an enormous thud echoing throughout the neighborhood.

Quincy police and firefighters responded to a flood of 911 calls that began at 12:26 p.m. Two of the four injured ironworkers were taken to Quincy Medical Center, where they were treated and released. The other two were treated at the scene.

Standing outside the shipyard, Don Gauthier said he spent 22 years working at Fore River, many of them as a crane supervisor. Over the years, he said, the shipyard helped build 12 liquefied natural gas tankers.

Gauthier said he had been watching how the crane was dismantled and had been concerned about the decision to take it apart from the bottom up. “It’s a shame. They should have taken the main girder off first and then removed the support beams,” Gauthier said. “Personally, I don’t think they went about it in the right way.”

Gregory Nordholm of Norsar LLC, the Washington state-based company that was hired to dismantle and move the crane, said he was about 15 feet away from the 370-foot crane when it collapsed. The work crew was preparing the crane so it could be lowered closer to the ground, he said. The plan was to lower it 80 feet.

“I don’t know exactly what happened,” he said.

It appeared to be part of the leg of the crane that initially failed, he said. “That leg section landed right on him and killed him instantly.”

Nordholm said he did not know the cause of the failure.

“We’re determined to figure out what happened and why it happened, so this doesn’t ever happen again,” he said. “The crane is safe and secure now.”

The crews stopped working on the crane and will not resume until investigators determine what occurred, he said.

Nordholm said that in addition to OSHA, the Quincy Building Department is also investigating.

Investigators from the state Department of Public Safety were at the scene to check the crane operator’s licensing, according to spokesman Terrel Harris.

“It’s early and preliminary, but they haven’t found any problem with the operator,” he said. “All his licensing is current.”

Federal regulators before have cited Norsar. In 2006, the company received 10 citations for workplace violations at a job site in Seattle related to health violations, according to federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration records posted on the agency’s website.

And in 2001, the company was fined $7,100 for five workplace hazard violations at a site in South Carolina, according to records. The violations were related to safety issues such as wiring, equipment use, and access to deck openings.

General Dynamics Corp. closed the shipyard in 1986. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority purchased the property the following year for $49.5 million. In 1997, the MWRA sold most of the property for $10 million to Massachusetts Heavy Industries Inc., a firm led by Greek entrepreneur Sotiris G. Emmanuel, who planned to reopen the shipyard.

But his plans to revive the local shipbuilding industry were never realized. After his company defaulted on federally guaranteed loans, the US Maritime Administration seized the property.

Quincy car dealer Dan Quirk, who acquired the property in a 2003 government auction for $9 million, currently owns the former shipyard. Quirk plans to redevelop the property into a “waterfront village” for industrial, commercial, and residential use.

The shipyard, which employed 32,000 people at its peak, stopped using the Goliath after General Dynamics sold the facility.

The crane, for decades a towering fixture on the Quincy landscape, has been sold to Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering of South Korea and was to be broken down into nine pieces, loaded onto a barge, and shipped to its new home in Mangalia, Romania.

In January 2005, another crane failure in the shipyard killed two workers.

In July 2005, OSHA cited Testa Corp. for 15 alleged violations of safety and health standards at the shipyard. The agency found that Testa, which had been hired to remove a 190-foot craneway, failed to do an engineering survey to determine its stability.