Rochester, New York: Scope Infection Lawsuits

Jed Dietrich, Esq., Recognized as a Super Lawyer and American Institute of Trial Lawyers Litigator of the Year, is Committed to Defending the Rights of Rochester Families. If You or Your Child Has Been Diagnosed with a Serious Illness Caused By a Contaminated Medical Scope, You Deserve Aggressive Representation and an Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer Willing to Fight for Your Rights.

Doctors use endoscopes to look inside the body without having to perform a full surgery.

Medical scopes are less invasive than a scalpel, but they are much more expensive to buy and maintain. Since they require a sizeable financial investment, physicians typically reuse scopes until they are no longer safe to operate. This practice is not dangerous, but it requires that scopes be thoroughly sterilized between procedures.

However, a growing body of evidence suggests that sterilization is not always enough to reduce the risk of contamination.

According to a recent series of reports, some of the country’s biggest medical scope brands contain critical defects. Olympus, for instance, makes about 70% of all endoscopes used in the United States. Many of Olympus’s scopes contain inordinately complex components, ranging from elevator mechanisms to concealed hinges. These components are hard to inspect and all but impossible to remove. In some cases, bacteria can become trapped inside these little nooks and crannies, using them as safe havens to survive sterilization.

Any germs that survive sterilization pose a serious and imminent risk to the next patient.

The Food and Drug Administration believes that hundreds of people across the country have fallen sick after being exposed to contaminated endoscopes and duodenoscopes. If you or a loved one was diagnosed with a serious illness caused by a medical scope, you could be entitled to take action against Olympus or another manufacturer.

A recognized U.S. News & World Report Best Law Firm, the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. has spent decades helping Rochester families stand up to some of the country’s biggest medical device manufacturers. We know what it takes to build a compelling, evidence-based case for compensation, and we have the results to prove it. Call us today at 585-939-3939 to speak to an Olympus scope injury lawyer near Rochester and schedule your 100% free, no-obligation consultation.

Since medical scopes can go deep inside the body, they are bound to pick up bacteria, pathogens, and other germs along the way. Consequently, reusing an endoscope or duodenoscope requires intensive cleaning, sometimes referred to as reprocessing.

Reprocessing usually involves:

1. Pre-cleaning the scope immediately after use;
2. Placing the scope in an airtight container before transporting it to a sterile space;
3. Performing a leak test to ensure that the scope’s internal components are in good condition;
4. Bathing the scope in a strong, medical-grade disinfectant;
5. Rinse the scope in sterile water to remove any lingering traces of residue or chemical cleaners.

Under ideal conditions, these steps are often sufficient to stop bacteria from traveling from one patient to the next. However, some Olympus medical scopes appear to contain design defects. These defects provide inadvertent safe havens for pathogens, which can make their way into the scope:

1. Elevator mechanism;
2. Microscopic grooves on and around the elevator mechanism;
3. Sealed internal electronic components that cannot be easily removed or inspected;
4. Other internal barriers act as an impediment to manual cleaning and chemical disinfection.

Even if a doctor follows all the right steps, there is a small chance that bacteria could remain trapped in hard-to-clean spaces. Worryingly, researchers have found that surviving pathogens are more likely to be drug-resistant, making them harder to treat and, by extension, more dangerous than ordinary germs.

Federal health regulators and personal injury lawyers have investigated hundreds of cases of suspected medical scope contamination. Patients have been diagnosed with conditions including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Bacterial infections;
2. Sepsis;
3. Pneumonia;
4. Internal organ damage;
5. Internal tissue damage;
6. HIV/AIDS.

Contaminated medical scopes have been linked to so-called “superbugs,” or strains of ordinary germs that are unusually resistant to antibiotics and other first-line treatments. This can turn what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill illness into a life-threatening emergency.

Medical device manufacturers have to meet exacting requirements.

Before a company like Olympus can sell a new endoscope or duodenoscope, it must usually go through a rigorous approval process. This process typically entails:

1. Submitting a design for tentative approval;
2. Conducting practical safety tests in a controlled laboratory setting and on non-human test subjects;
3. Testing the device on human subjects;
4. Submitting the product for FDA review;
5. Warning the public of verifiable complications and side effects that are documented after the device has been approved for sale.

If Olympus or one of its competitors fails to meet these obligations, it could be held liable for the cost of any resulting injury. This is often true even if the manufacturer did not know that the device was dangerous. However, filing a claim for compensation is not always straightforward. Even if you are certain that a defective medical scope caused your injury, you will need more than a diagnosis to negotiate a settlement or win a court-ordered award.

You have a right to know what goes into your body.

If you have been injured by a defective endoscope or duodenoscope, you could be entitled to significant compensation through a product liability claim. Product liability lawsuits can be litigated under different legal theories, all of which have their own requirements. Your Rochester personal injury lawyer will help you determine the best strategy for your case.

Depending on the circumstances of your injury, you may have to:

1. Establish that the medical scope was in some way defective;
2. Prove that the defect was the most likely cause of your injury;
3. Establish that you have suffered damages as the direct result of the defect.

In the context of a product liability claim, the term “defect” can be rather expansive.

A defect could be a manufacturing defect, a design defect, or even a failure to warn defect. Proving the existence of a defect usually necessitates a fairly intensive investigation, in part because companies like Olympus would not usually share confidential design and manufacturing information unless compelled to do so through discovery.

New York does not cap compensation in most product liability claims.

If you have been injured by a defective medical scope, you could be entitled to damages, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Your hospital bills;
2. The costs of future or anticipated care;
3. Corrective or elective surgery;
4. Paid co-pays and deductibles;
5. Lost income from work;
6. Diminished earning potential;
7. Emotional pain and suffering;
8. Physical pain and suffering;
9. Loss of enjoyment;
10. Wrongful death.

Since our founding in 2005, the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. has helped our clients in and around Rochester obtain more than $300 million in damages. We could help you, too, but you have to act fast. If you wait too long to contact an Olympus scope injury lawyer, key evidence could go missing, or the statute of limitations may lapse. Once this happens, you could lose your right to a fair recovery.

Do not take chances with your rights: call Jed Dietrich, Esq., today at 585-939-3939 to speak to a medical scope injury lawyer and schedule your 100% free, no-obligation consultation as soon as possible.

Call the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. immediately at 585-939-3939 so that our aggressive, tenacious, and hardworking personal injury lawyers can fight to obtain the best result for your personal injury claim in Rochester, New York. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and there is never a fee until we WIN for you!