By August of 2010, DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, issued a major hip replacement recall. Since DePuy had no official means of tracking hip implant recipients around the world, the arduous task of informing these patients was left to the orthopedists and surgeons who had performed the surgeries. Since it is estimated that 93,000 hip replace were given to patients worldwide, it is expected that there would be numerous lawsuits filed on behalf of these patients. The number of lawsuits is currently only in the hundreds, but slowly gaining in numbers. This clearly indicates that the majority of the thousands of hip replacement recipients around the world are still in the dark with regards to knowing about a recall. ASR recipients often make the decision to address the issue by acquiring the counsel of a hip lawyer to get them the best lawsuit settlement possible.

There are reasonable explanations for this disparity in the number of recipients versus the number of lawsuits filed to date. It may be a simple matter in that many of the recipients may have just relocated without leaving any current contact information for their physicians. This causes problems for a number of reasons. First, those not experiencing any symptoms of hip replacement failure or metallosis may not be seeking the proper medical care they need. Secondly, the longer these patients wait to have their claim evaluated by a hip replacement lawyer, the less time they will have to file a claim against DePuy in a timely manner.

Recent studies producing sobering claims against the defective hip devices increases the urgency for recipients to seek a hip replacement lawyer posthaste. Initially, the national regulatory joint registries in Australia and the United Kingdom reported that DePuy hip product failed 12 to 13 percent of the time after five years. More recent reports within the past several weeks have shown more ominous statistics with nearly 49 percent of these implants estimated to fail after six years. Consequently, a significant number of these recipients will need painful corrective surgeries that could easily have been prevented had DePuy taken responsibility in designing a better product and implementing a recall of its defective implants earlier.

Thousands of patients worldwide may still be ignorant of a DePuy hip replacement recall.Patients receiving hip replacements over the last several years need to determine if the device was manufactured by DePuy. If so, these patients should seek immediate legal consultation with an experienced lawyer to get proper compensation for any damages they may have suffered.