Hip and Leg Pain - Failed Warranty-Free Implants as the

Hip and Leg Pain - Failed Warranty-Free Implants as the Cause

Artificial hip implants are supposed to last about 15 - 20 years. And yet my father, barely 2 years into his artificial implant surgery, began to complain of serious hip and leg pain and found that his high-priced hip implants had failed. Not only did he have to put up with all the pain and mental anguish, we had to pay $70,000 to have the failed implants removed and new ones put in. We've heard a lot from the manufacturer who made that implant; they want to take a close look at it to see what went wrong. But not once has there been an offer to replace it under warranty or anything. That's when I found out that the consumer protection warranty and return rules that apply to a $50 boombox, are nowhere to be seen for life-saving systems like medical implants.

There are hundreds of thousands of elderly people who put themselves through implant surgery each year - their Medicare pays the $30,000 it takes to get a complete set. And yet, manufacturers' warranties are unheard of. When they fail, if only in a few unfortunate people, even if it was entirely the manufacturer's fault for making a poor quality product, they can be out of pocket for tens of thousands of dollars, and often, it'll be the doctor selling you the implants and profiting from them. For a government that is trying its best to pay for a new and expensive healthcare plan, little has been done to make manufacturers own up responsibility for faulty products that cost the government millions upon millions of dollars each year.

It's not as if there are no implants that are covered by warranties; defibrillators, the implants used in your heart for a regular heart pulse, have come with manufacturers warranties for decades. Some, like my father, have sued the manufacturers for costs, and they have won. But these are one-off cases; most patients who must deal with terrible hip and leg pain and failed implants, just need to suck it up and pay for it themselves. The companies, reputable ones like Johnson & Johnson, say that guarantees are difficult to give because having an implant fail can often come about not through the manufacturer's fault, but through careless surgery and post-surgery care given. So basically what you have is an industry that sells maybe $5 billion worth of implants a year, with no such thing as responsibility owned up to.

In the hospital, my father met some patients who were in with unbearable hip and leg pain, because they had had more than two or three implants fail, and needed to correct matters with new surgery each time. Some of Johnson & Johnson's devices, the ASR device in particular, seem to devastate these hapless old people. Why is it though that some of these manufacturers offer warranties in other countries? Are US laws so lax that we can't even protect our own citizens anymore?