In more fallout from documentary, Alaska orthopedic surgeon Stephen Tower – who chronicles in the film how he had to have his own Johnson & Johnson/DePuy ASR hips replaced to end his cobalt toxicity issues – built a website at his Tower Orthopedic and Joint Replacement Clinic (TJRC) where he discusses how he continues to help other patients who have suffered adverse health consequences from their metal-on-metal replacement hips.

The film shows what happened to Tower, and other patients injured over the last 15 years by either the DePuy ASR replacement hips, or other metal-on-metal hips, which sometimes fracture and can result in heavy-metal toxicity issues. J&J issued a recall of thousands of ASR hip devices in August 2010 due to their higher-than-average fracture rates. Also see "DePuy recalls discontinued hip replacement devices" - Medtech Insight, 31 August, 2010. Other metal-on-metal hips have been recalled since then, and thousands of patients have filed lawsuits against device makers over the products.

In the documentary film, Tower and Robert Bridges, an Alaskan diagnostic radiologist, explain how research into Tower’s own cobalt toxicity issues from metal-on-metal hips, discovered in part through Bridges’ brain imaging, compelled Tower to help other patients get treatment for their neurotoxicity symptoms linked to the hips.

“So, I have been studying these patients with these issues. But I don’t think I’m the guy who should be doing these studies; I think that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or FDA should do it,” Tower says in the documentary.

Public Interest Groups Will Leverage ‘Bleeding Edge’ Lessons To Push For Device Safety Changes

More from Regulation

More from Policy & Regulation