News Feed Discussions Future of hernia repairs

  • Alephy

    Member
    March 7, 2020 at 8:48 am

    I was thinking, I seem to remember of a story in the UK where an old retired lady asked a big drug company to improve their ethical conduct (she had some of her pension invested in the company): the company “ignored her”, and she then took it to write letters to all the members of her pension fund, who in turn requested that their banks stop investing their money into the said drug company: the drug company yielded to the request of the old lady…

    It is true that the mesh companies are big and powerful, but only up to the point where investors (us) continue to value them this way…if millions of people decided that they do NOT want their money to be invested in said companies, they would probably start taking notice (more than just going to trial I would think)…

  • Alephy

    Member
    March 7, 2020 at 6:41 am

    I watched an interview on the BBC and I think he got a mesh…so wealth and fame are not necessarily factors…

  • Alephy

    Member
    March 7, 2020 at 4:12 am

    I just read that Matt Damon had hernia surgery…I wonder if with mesh or without 🤔

  • Good intentions

    Member
    March 5, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    I point this out often, but the mesh industry is a multi- BILLION dollar industry, and growing due to older people getting hernias, according to the market research. Sad to even think about an older person, with lower energy, having to fight the pain of hernia mesh. I’m sure the pan medication industry is in parallel.

    This is what the VP’s and directors at the big companies see. Not people, but markets.

    Sorry to be a downer again…

    https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/hernia-mesh-devices-market

    https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/hernia-mesh-market-forecast-to-reach-usd-578-billion-by-2026-top-key-players-covidien-united-surgical-dolphin-sutures-transeasy-medical-tech-2020-02-26

    The pain meds market is small compared to the mesh market.

    https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/pain-management-therapeutics-market

  • Alephy

    Member
    March 4, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    Bill Gates is probably very well advised by his doctors. At the very least he would be given all the information with the proper weighing, as if not any law suit could end up very badly for the medical facility (or he just owns this one, which is anyway the same i.e. he will not get a misguided consultation). And of course he could simply decide to go for a tissue only repair (cost or distance are not factors in this case)…

    I think the only solution to the hernia conundrum (I love this word) is to find a simple, cost effective procedure which shows less collateral problems than the current mesh machinery. Mesh out of your own tissue or re-engineering of the weakened tissue to regain its original strength?

  • Good intentions

    Member
    March 4, 2020 at 6:46 pm

    5 to 10 years in the past (my mesh implantation was five years ago) I think things were about the same as now. The problems were well-known. With no oversight by government or professional society, it’s basically a “what the market will bear” type of industry.

    The mesh makers just calculate their lawsuit settlement fees in to product costs. The medical schools “weigh” the benefits of the monetary contributions by the mesh makers against the harm caused, and the surgeons and doctors try to do the best that they can with no support.

    There could be some sort of tipping point in the future. It would probably need somebody famous, wealthy, honorable, and smart to get it done though. Famous so that people would listen, wealthy so that they could afford to speak out and make things happen, and smart enough to see the wider picture for what it is.

    I often imagine Bill Gates getting a hernia and a bad mesh repair. Followed by a successful mesh removal, of course, so that he would have the energy to take up the cause afterward. I’ve also thought that if the mesh problem were looked at similarly to a virus, it might get more attention. Like the opioid problem.

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