The business side of medicine is one of the most, if not the most, delicate and challenging markets in the world. On the one hand, as a business, it is your goal to maximize profits by expanding your product to the widest range of consumers, but on the other hand, as a medical company, you are creating and selling a product that affects people’s livelihood and health. Normally, businesses would ruthlessly advertise their product trying to sell it to anyone that buys, but in the medical profession, a line has to be drawn preventing companies from doing this because medical company’s inherent level of responsibility is unparallel to any other business.

Someone forgot to tell Medtronic that it was a medical company. In 2002, Medtronic got its special Bone Graft approved by the FDA for anterior approach to lumbar or spine fusion. The device itself is an alternative approach to the typical bone graft which takes bone graft from one part of your body and places it in the needed area. The Medtronic device is an artificial, liquid bioengineered morphogenic protein applied to a collagen sponge and then placed inside a metal container where it genetically engineers new bone. The benefit of this procedure, aside from its effectiveness, is that it only requires one surgery versus the typical two. While the product proved to be highly effective in this area, it proved to be fatal when tried elsewhere with symptoms of male sterility, trouble breathing, cancer, paralysis, and uncontrolled bone growth.

Nonetheless, Medtronic posted positive reports with the help of multiple physicians. In order to gain credibility and popular opinion, Medtronic delegated funds of over $200 million to various doctors and medical journals to hide these fatal side effects and instead promote its effectiveness in off-label use. Was the $200 million worth the payment? Monetarily, absolutely. The world’s largest device maker turned the Medtronic inFUSE Bone Graft into an $800 million a year device with usage in roughly half a million patients in 2011.

The hope now, however, is that most of this money goes back to the victims who were wrongly treated and put fatally at risk. The area of law a claim this sort of claim falls under is known as product liability. When manufacturers, such as Medtronic, ignore their responsibility to instruct users how to appropriately use their product, they leave themselves susceptible to lawsuits exposing this negligence.

 There are attorneys available who have extensive practice and success in lawsuits against the Medtronic Company in regards to this particular device. If you or someone you know has suffered a personal injury or worse, a wrongful death because of the carelessness of a billion-dollar medical company and irresponsible doctors, then you are entitled to compensation that can help the healing process and punish the company that did this. The compensation can include the cost of medical bills, future and past, future lost earnings, impaired earning capacity, pharmaceutical costs, therapy expenses, disability, loss of relations, mental anguish, and physical pain.

Do not let them get away with this terrible injustice, get in touch with an experienced attorney now who can begin the process of writing the wrongs that have occurred and making sure you receive the maximum compensation for you and your family.