Congressman wants answers on surgical device that can spread cancer
It’s a surgery that became a death sentence for more women than we’ll ever know.
And we may finally be on the verge of getting some answers.
For years I’ve been warning you about the risks of laparoscopic power morcellators. They’re used to grind uterine fibroids — and even for hysterectomies — but they can fling cancerous cells all throughout your body.
Countless women who agreed to a surgery
that was supposed to be safe
ended up leaving their hospitals in a fight for their lives.
It’s a risk that we should have been warned about decades ago. And now at least one Congressman thinks our government, device manufacturers, and hospitals may have done more than hide the truth.
They may have committed a crime.
She lived the nightmare firsthand.
Just three years ago, Reed had her uterine fibroids removed with power morcellation. And just months later she learned that the procedure left her with Stage IV cancer that even spread to her spine.
Rather than take the risk seriously, when Dr. Reed returned to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for cancer treatment, she was escorted by security guards so she wouldn’t make any trouble.
But as far as Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania is concerned, it’s high time that we made lots of trouble about the risks of these power morcellators — and found out why more women like Dr. Reed weren’t warned.
Fitzpatrick has just written a letter to the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations demanding a criminal probe into why power morcellators managed to escape scrutiny for so many years.
You see, even though experts have known about the cancer risk for more than 20 years, the FDA is claiming ignorance, saying that it didn’t hear a word about the danger until just over two years ago.
That sounds like a load of bull to me. And it’s something that Fitzpatrick wants to get to the bottom of.
“Hundreds, if not thousands, of women are dead,” he wrote.
And it’s not just the FDA that’s to blame for these women’s deaths, Fitzpatrick claims.
According to FDA regulations, hospitals are required to report any suspicions of device-related deaths within 10 days. And a manufacturer has 30 days to inform the FDA if its device “contributed to a death or serious injury.”
That’s why Fitzpatrick is also asking the FDA to investigate not only the manufacturer, Ethicon (a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary), but also Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Rochester General Hospital and the University of Rochester Medical Center for never reporting deaths linked to the device.
And you can bet that there are lots of other hospitals that should be added to that list, too.
With all the heartbreak that these power morcellators have caused, you’d think they’d be off the market by now. But, unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Instead of banning the device, all the FDA did in November was issue a warning and some guidelines on how they should be used.
Thanks for nothing.
Here’s hoping that Rep. Firzpatrick finally gets to the bottom of this — but he’s going to need lots of help. He’s just one person, and the FDA and the mainstream practically invented the art of stonewalling.
That’s why we all need to contact our members of Congress and ask them to send similar letters demanding an investigation.
Getting the truth now won’t help the women who have already been harmed by power morcellators — but it could keep you or someone you love from becoming the next victim.
Sources:
“Congressman wants FDA to launch criminal probe into J&J morcellator deaths” Michelle Llamas, February 16, 2016, Drugwatch, drugwatch.com
