manufacturers. (We contacted several mesh manufacturers for this story,
but none responded.) From TV ads to cold-calling certain demographics,
such as "all the phone numbers in Dallas, Texas, of women over the age of
45," there's now an all-out effort to recruit patients for class-action law-
suits, says Dr. Feagins.
"They're trying to make as much off this as they can," he says, "but
I'd argue that the vast majority of patients don't have a problem with
the mesh. And no mesh has been recalled by the FDA. Not one piece.
Nobody has ever shown that the product is the problem."
The ultimate fallout, Dr. Feagins fears, is that mesh manufacturers
will throw in the towel. "The industry will say, forget it, I'm not going
to hang my
butt out here
anymore,
because it's just
too costly for
us. And we'll
go back to
what we did 20
years ago, and
people aren't
going to be
happy with that
either. It kills
me to know
that I'm not
going to have
these products
because of all
this litigation.
4 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
• FOREIGN RELATIONS "Any time you place a foreign material in the body, there could be conse-
quences," says obstetrician-gynecologist Thomas L. Lyons, MD, MS, FACOG, (right).
