Transvaginal Mesh Manufacturer Changes Policies to Allow For Better Oversight of Its Subsidiaries

(New York, NY, July 17, 2012) The Rottenstein Law Group, which represents clients with claims stemming from injuries allegedly caused by transvaginal mesh products including those that were manufactured by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon, has learned that Johnson & Johnson is making policy changes that will enable its board of directors and C-level executives to better oversee the company's subsidiaries.

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to create a board level group to oversee subsidiaries' compliance with regulatory rules and to adopt updated risk-management policies,� according to a July 11, 2012 Bloomberg article. Creating this board group is one of the terms of Johnson & Johnson's tentative agreement to settle claims filed against the company's directors in federal court (In re Johnson & Johnson Derivative Litigation, 10-cv-2033, U.S. District Court, District New Jersey (Trenton)), the Bloomberg article reports. According to attorneys representing the shareholders in that litigation, this change to Johnson & Johnson's board structure should put an end to the company's decentralized approach to compliance and quality control,� which resulted in a lack of accountability, a structural excuse for plausible deniability among senior management and J&J's board, and ultimately, a recipe for disaster, the article states. Critical information will no longer be confined to the level of J&J subsidiaries.

Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries paid millions in penalties in 2010 to resolve charges filed against the company for illegally marketing the epilepsy drug Topamax for unapproved uses, according to a July 12, 2012 Associated Press article, and later in 2012 the FDA ordered another Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics, to stop selling a hip replacement system it was marketing illegally.

Recently, another Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, Ethicon, announced its plans to stop selling four of its transvaginal mesh products in a letter filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, where U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin is presiding over the pre-trial proceedings of a multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2327) consolidating hundreds of cases against Ethicon for surgical mesh injuries, according to a June 5, 2012 Businessweek article.

As a law firm representing women in the vaginal mesh cases against Ethicon, the Rottenstein Law Group is relieved to learn of Johnson & Johnson's plans to improve oversight of its subsidiaries.
Anyone seeking more information about transvaginal mesh lawsuits can visit www.vaginalmeshlawsuit.com. The site has vital information about the dangers of this medical device, along with easy-to-use social media features that allow for easy sharing on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Visitors are also encouraged to link to their own Web sites and blogs in order to spread the word about defective medical products and dangerous drugs.

About the Rottenstein Law Group
The Rottenstein Law Group is a New York-based law firm that represents clients in mass tort actions. The firm was founded by Rochelle Rottenstein, a lawyer with over two decades of experience in compassionate representation of clients in consumer product injury, mass tort, and class action law suits. For more information, please visit its Web site at www.rotlaw.com, or call (888) 9-ROT-LAW. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.