Patient Safety News: IVC filter maker knew about risks, failed to act, report says

Another installment in an ongoing NBC News investigation has raised serious questions as to why the manufacturer of a popular blood-clot filter did not remove its dangerous product from the marketplace.

According to the report, C.R. Bard executives knew about safety risks with the company’s G2 series IVC filters around the time the devices were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2005. But Bard continued to market the G2 and G2 Express filters to doctors and hospitals until 2010. The filters have since been linked to at least 12 deaths and hundreds of injuries, NBC News reported.

“Whether it’s an ethical reason, a moral obligation, in the interest of public safety and patient safety, absolutely these devices should have been recalled,” Dr. William Kuo, a interventional radiologist who runs Stanford Health Care’s IVC Filter Clinic, told NBC News.

Working in collaboration with other national law firms, Berman & Simmons is handling claims involving patients who developed harmful complications due to the use of G2 and other types of IVC filters.

“While Bard and other device manufacturers made millions off these dangerous filters, real people were hurt and lost their lives,” said Michael Bigos, a Berman & Simmons lawyer who handles cases involving dangerous drugs and medical devices.

“This reinforces what we already know: Consumers must stand up and take action, and we need to continue to stand up with them. We can’t rely on the government and we can’t rely on these companies to act in the best interest of patients.”

IVC filters are tiny, cage-like devices that are designed to catch blood clots before they reach a person’s heart and lungs, where they can cause serious injury or death.

But in recent years, the FDA has received a wave of reports that the newer generation of retrievable IVC filters, made by Bard, Cook Medical, and other manufacturers, can cause harmful complications, including punctured organs and veins and even death. Patients have filed IVC filter lawsuits across the country.