Daubert Order Issued in Ohio Federal Ethicon Pelvic Mesh Action

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio federal judge has issued a Daubert order regarding the testimony of a plaintiff’s causation expert witnesses in an Ethicon pelvic mesh action, rejecting one expert’s “degradation bark theory.”

In a Jan. 11 opinion, Judge Walter H. Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio allowed opinions as the degradation of polypropylene and Prolene in vivo generally, certain alternative designs, and how Ethicon’s testing and research impacted a surgeon’s decision to use the Prolift.

Tennessee resident Patricia Hosbrook was surgically implanted with Ethicon’s Prolift Posterior pelvic mesh device in March 2007 to …