The Medical Mesh Scandal Ruining Women's Lives

snuck out for me by a surgeon from a hospital shelf.

The surgeon said to me, "If you let me do some food tests on you, I can bump you up to the top of the list and that we can fix you. It's just like a little sling." It's the only surgery we know of performed blind. >> If you could make up a company,

take it to a notified body, get approval for a medical device, and nobody [music] even wants to see the product, test the product. >> I think the giant corporations have promoted mesh because it's made a lot of money. >> It has knife-like edge plastic, but it has caused massive amounts of harm to

thousands of women. >> I'm never going to get back my life again.

>> Pelvic mesh was brought onto the market in the late '90s, marketed as gold standard, [music] minimally invasive, low risk. All of us were told that in our consent process. In America, promotional videos were selling women a quick and easy fix. >> [music] >> Here in the UK, surgeons were telling us the same thing.

>> Today's urethral sling procedure is much easier for women than traditional incontinence surgeries. >> Mesh slings, they're used to treat stress urinary incontinence. >> The whole procedure took no more than 15 minutes. >> Likewise, [music] pelvic organ prolapse. >> I've had patients who come back and have been in [music] tears that they're

so happy. >> You go in into a woman's vagina with a massive hook and then pull the mesh round.