A popular catheter used to remove blood clots has been voluntarily recalled by its maker due to the
increased risk of accident, accidental deaths. I don't know that they're accidental anymore.
This company has known plenty about this. I have Becca Timmons with me, who's handling these cases.
Becca, you know, first of all, what grabbed me about this story is we always see the company
and say in trial say, well, we voluntarily pulled it off. That's not exactly right.
The FDA in this point in, in this particular case, discovered the problem. They talked about
the problem. They saw many, many events, but why did this have to be pulled off the market?
So at bottom, this is a device that is used to remove blood clots from the brain. It's a
tiny vacuum that's inserted into the vessels in the brain and using suction removes the clot.
Almost right away, it was approved in July, 2019, almost immediately, adverse event reports were
pouring into the FDA. People dying.
People dying on the table. Essentially the, when the catheter is inside the vessel in the brain,
it would expand rapidly and violently causing the blood vessel to rupture resulting in
massive hemorrhage and death. Well, actually the tip of the,
tip of the device would actually break off and it would, it would actually cause the vessel to erupt
also. That was there, there are several problems with this. And the point is the most bothersome
thing about this is this is that they've got other things they can use for ischemic stroke. I mean,
you, you, you, ischemic stroke. You've got many things that can be done besides this device. This
device was a jazzy new thing to sell wasn't it? Right. The treatment options were either TPA,
which is a clot busting drug that's injected into the vessel by your individual
interventional radiologist. And then the, the mechanical thrombectomy using a stent
retrieval system was sort of the standard. And then in 2007, this company Penumbra
developed this aspiration thrombectomy technique. And there was a consensus emerging
that this was the superior method and the company decided to capitalize further on the success.
And this was the eighth generation device and obviously it has some very horrendous defects.
Well, but it's particularly for the ischemic stroke. Is that right? Is it, that's typically
where they're going to use it? Right. This is indicated
in cases of ischemic stroke. Yeah. Okay. So this is the same company though
that, my memory is they had problems with another device that they were also involved with at some
point where that, that device was also causing death. That was a few years ago. And so they're
back into the market. They're trying to make it sound like, well, we pulled it out voluntarily.
Here's what they knew. They knew they had 18 deaths and if they reported 18 deaths, more than
likely, there's many, many more. Under-reporting in this type of thing is very common. And they had
50, 50 injuries that they reported and we know that. That's probably under-reported too. So,
so pick up with the idea with somebody presents with ischemic stroke. They've got, it's not like
you to have this to live is it? I mean, it's, this is not a necessary medical device, is it?
Right. There are, there are other treatment options available. This was kind of the cutting
edge Vanguard protocol that was just recently emerging in the last 15 or so years, but there
are several other treatment options available. Well, did the FDA, what did the FDA do when these,
when people started dying, when the injuries started showing up, did they take immediate action
or did they lag behind, like they usually do sometimes for years before they go, oh, well God,
maybe we ought to say something or do something? So the device was approved in July, 2019 and then
as I said before, right away, issues started coming up, injuries, deaths. So in July, 2020 FDA
came out and said, all right, we need to modify a warning because every time an interventional,
not every time, but frequently when an interventional radiologist injects dye
into the device, there's a failure. So they put a warning on there, warning physicians, hey, don't
put contrast through this device. It will rupture. So that was in July, 2020. But.
Well, shouldn't they have pulled it then rather than just, I mean, that's a meaningless warning.
I mean, it's a meaningless warning unless the doctor knows what the failure or cause
of the failure is. Right? Right. So, you know, as, as,
as we saw after that warning came out, these events were continued to happen. And it wasn't
until nearly six months later that FDA said, all right, enough is enough. They pulled the device.
Okay. This is Penumbra, right? Right.
The company's Penumbra. What should people do if they feel like they've been affected by it?
So, our firm is investigating these claims. We're investigating the company as well,
the manufacturer and the device itself. So, if, if someone believes that they or a loved
one were injured during aspiration thrombectomy using this device, they should reach out to an
attorney. We're evaluating these cases and to see if there's a viable option to, to litigate,
potentially recover for these people. Yeah. You're looking at the cover-up too,
aren't you? You're looking at Penumbra's cover-up, I think is going to be a vital part of the case.
I think, I think fact discovery is going to be very interesting in this case.
Yeah. Becca, thanks for joining me. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you.