On August 26, 2010, Johnson and Johnson subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, issued a voluntary recall of the DePuy ASR™ XL Acetabular System and DePuy ASR™ Hip Resurfacing System.
It has never been an easy ride for DePuy with the ASR. There have been documented issues with these devices as early as clinical trials, yet somehow, some 93,000 devices were installed worldwide since 2003. The ASR Recall has brought to light on the power that manufacturers have to push devices onto the market.
Recalling a medical device is obviously not like recalling some part of a car or typical retail product. Patients have these devices implanted in to their bodies, and require invasive operations to have them updated and replaced.
Many patients are now being faced with the very real possibility that the hip they believed would support them longer than its competitors is not only failing prematurely, but has, in fact, caused irreparable damage.
