Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Five lawsuits against manufacturers of pain pumps and pharmaceutical companies on behalf of 28 people were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court this month, alleging fraud, breach of warranty and products liability, saying the makers of the products continued to market the pain pumps as mitigation for shoulder joints despite the specific use of those products not being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The lawsuits also allege that the pain pump devices caused a painful and debilitating condition known as postarthroscopic glenohumeral chondrolysis (PAGCL), in which the cartilage in the shoulder joint wears away causing bone to rub against bone.

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Things were looking promising for Florida State University quarterback Christian Ponder, until last Saturday, when he separated his right shoulder making a tackle after throwing his fourth interception against Clemson. He now faces surgery to repair a Grade 3 AC separation, which will bench him for the rest of the season.

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I-Flow Corp., the Irvine, Calif.-based device maker, exceeded expectations with its quarterly results and says it expects to see an operating profit for the year despite a sharp increase in the number of product liability lawsuits filed against the company in July 2009. The company, which makes devices that deliver targeted anesthesia as an alternative to narcotics known as pain pumps, has a market value of $175 million.

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The shoulder joint has the greatest range of motion of all our joints and allows us to use our arms for various tasks, from throwing pitches to supporting our bodies. When the shoulder is injured, surgery may be required to relieve pain and restore mobility. However, some individuals have found that surgery on their shoulder has made their condition worse.

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Pain pumps are devices designed to deliver medication directly into the surgical site to manage pan after surgery. While effective for pain management, physicians began seeing more and more patients suffering from a debilitating condition known as chondrolysis following use of shoulder pain pumps. This concern was validated in a recent study by The American Journal of Sports Medicine, which identified a specific type of chondrolysis, Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL), associated with the use of shoulder pain pumps. As a result, hundreds of people harmed by the devices have filed suit against the manufacturers of pain pumps.

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Just five years ago, baseball writer, radio host and injury expert Will Carroll called torn shoulder labrums “baseball’s most fearsome injury,” adding “If pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they’d be destroyed.” However, thanks to improvements in surgery, baseball players no longer have to look at torn labrums as career-ending injuries.

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Two studies show that knee surgery is beneficial at times but should not be performed routinely for the treatment of osteoarthritis, according to Fox News. The studies were published in a recent New England Journal of Medicine. One finds that medicine combined with physical therapy is just as effective as surgery for relieving the pain and stiffness of moderate or severe arthritis. The other study finds that tears in knee cartilage that often result in surgery are very common and do not always cause symptoms.

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Denver Rockies starting pitcher Jeff Francis has been trying to ignore the aching pain in his shoulder, but what is causing him more pain is deciding whether to have shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum flap, according to the Denver Post.

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A group of researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, have identified that male high school athletes in the United States are more likely than girls to suffer shoulder injuries, according to The Washington Post. The study focused on football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, baseball and softball and found that shoulder injuries did not happen frequently, but when they did occur, a disproportionate number of shoulder injuries happened to high school boys than high school girls.

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When a 37-year-old canine officer injured both of her shoulders after a fall at work, she sought shoulder surgery to fix her injuries and to relieve the pain she suffered. Multiple procedures were performed on both shoulders, most of which I can’t even pronounce, and postoperative pain pumps were administered to both shoulders following the surgery.  The problems she suffered in the future were not something she had bargained for.

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