The Mesh Story
The above timeline sets out the major landmarks for transvaginal surgical mesh since its first approval in 1996
In 2014 an Oxford scientist, Carl Heneghan, joined an undercover investigation to expose how the regulation of medical devices is so lax that mesh packaging for fruit could be approved as a medical device to be implanted in people’s bodies.
Here is what has been happening since the Scandal of fruit netting ‘approved as surgical implant’ was reported in The Times
Nov 26th 2018: The Guardian Revealed: faulty medical implants harm patients around world: Replacement hips and vaginal mesh products sold to hospitals without any …. of investigations overseen by the MHRA at a time when complaints are soaring. … Carl Heneghan, a professor of evidence-based medicine at the…
Nov 6th 2018: The BMJ (blog) Unreported clinical trial of the week: prospective outcomes study of … Nick DeVito, Ben Goldacre, Carl Heneghan … Symbotex™, one brand of mesh, incorporates a bioabsorbable film into a nonabsorbable …
Oct 2018: The Guardian reports Vaginal mesh should be offered as last resort, health officials – Carl Heneghan, who previously called for a public inquiry into the use of mesh, said: “We’ve been far too quick to resort to surgery as a first choice when it should have been a last chance and as a consequence many women have suffered harm.” Heneghan described the guidelines as “step in the right direction”.
Oct 2018: In a BMJ editorial, Surgical mesh and patient safety Carl Heneghan and Fiona Godlee refer to NICE guidance on mesh and call for a patient register of implants
Feb 2018 at the UK Houses of Parliament Carl Heneghan, spoke at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group into mesh.You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Surgeon is …
Dec 2017.
BMJ press releases CEBM research: Inadequate regulation for vaginal mesh products has exposed women …
BMJ Open publishes Trials of transvaginal mesh devices for pelvic organ prolapse: a systematic database review of the US FDA approval process. BMJ Open 2017;7:e017125.
BMJ publishes Heneghan Carl, Aronson Jeffrey K, Goldacre Ben, Mahtani Kamal R, Plüddemann Annette, OnakpoyaIgho et al. Transvaginal mesh failure: lessons for regulation of implantable devices. BMJ 2017; 359 :j5515
Dec 6th The Guardian reports on Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, BMJ research and analysis: Women harmed because vaginal mesh regulation ‘not fit for purpose’ along with the Daily Mail Regulation over vaginal mesh implants is inadequate; Sky News ‘Inadequate’ vaginal mesh regulations put women at risk, warn experts and The Independent Vaginal mesh study reveals how lax medical regulation puts women at risk
Nov 26th 2017 BBC reports Vaginal mesh operations should be banned, says NICE The University of Oxford’s Prof Carl Heneghan, an expert in the subject, said the draft guidelines were an admission that health services had “got this wrong” – calling the use of mesh a “catastrophe”