Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Dalkon Shield was the name of a controversial contraceptive (UID) product made by the Dalkon Corporation. Accusations of malfunction of this product led to a very famous lawsuit. History Arabian and Turkish camel drivers have been known to install stones into the uterus of their saddle camels to prevent pregnancy during long trips. The first modern UIDs were produced by Dr. Jack Lippee in the 1960s. The product was made of plastic, and it contained an attached monofilament plastic tail. This tail had a double purpose: By touching their vaginas and feeling the tail, women could be assured their contraceptive was in place, and also, it could be taken out by a medical doctor when desired by the patient. Popular trademarks of that product during that era included the Lippes Loop and the Saf-T-Coil. In 1970, the Dalkon Shield product was bought over by the Robins company from the Dalkon Corporation. In 1971, Dalkon Shields went to the market in the United States and Puerto Rico, spearheaded by a large marketing campaign. Unlike the other products, the Dalkon Shield came with a multifilament rather than a monofilament string, and it bridged the gap between the uterus and the vagina. When the Robins company bought over the product, they apparently knew of this. The Dalkon Shield had a tendency to wick, allowing vaginal bacteria to tresspass into the uterus, causing infection of the area, and, possibly, pelvic inflammatory disease. Soon after the product came into the market, Robins company began receiving complains of sick clients, some of which suffered ectopic pregnancies or had become sterile. The Dalkon Shield thus, proved not to be 100 percent safe against pregnancies. Many women also complained of septic spontaneus abortion, a condition that ocurred when the bacteria filled product would get pulled upward as the uterus opened. With the bacteria attacking the women's placenta, many fetuses and in some cases, also their mothers, died. Around that time, a rumor spread that the deaths were the responsability of the users, not the company. These rumors were silenced when Dr. Howard J. Tatum performed tests in 1975 to prove the product's propensity to wick, and the connection between the wicking and the deaths of clients and their fetuses. In January and February of 1975, the test results were made public by the medical journal. By then, the product had been removed from the market. Lawsuit With the advent of lawyer media advertisement in the 1980s, Dalkon Shield was one of the primary targets of law firm advertising. Law firms would often even use photos of the Dalkon Shield so that prospective clients and former product users could identify it. With this, former Dalkon Shield users flocked to lawyer offices to seek for assistance. The Robins company tried to blame its clients on the malfunction of the contraceptive. But their defense became weaker and weaker as more cases appeared nationwide, and the case gained media attention. Judge Miles Lord sent many of the cases to be seen in Minnesota. In Ohio, meanwhile, so many lawsuits were being brought up against the Robins Corporation that the company was forced to settle a large amount of them, and judge Wesley Brown of Kansas City was flown over to help. The Robins company succeeded in moving the Minnesota lawsuits to Richmond, Virginia, where the company was headquartered. They attempted to get a punitives class action. This was unsuccessful because in 1981, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had reversed a California judge's decision to grant the company such action. With that defeat, in 1985, the Robins Company filed for chapter 11 protection. Judge Robert R. Merhidge asked, on August 6, 1985, for all the cases nationwide to be seen in his district. This was done at a meeting between case judges. That meeting was not seen with good eyes by the plaintiffs or their lawyers. Many felt that they were losing power over the fate of the lawsuits because of this meeting, and in March of 1986, judge Merhidge was the object of a motion filed against. The lawyers fighting the case met in Chicago, and they decided to leave all the cases to the 38 most qualified lawyers among them. They decided to provide U.S. trustee William White with a list of prospective members of the Dalkon Shield Claimants Committee. On September 21, 1985, the committee was approved by judge Merhidge. After long trials, lawsuits, arguments and processes, most Dalkon Shield clients won their lawsuits against the Robins company, and large amounts of money began to be paid by the middle 1990s. The amounts of dollars given to Dalkon Shield users amounted to billions of dollars. The Dalkon Shield lawsuits remains one of the most famous corporate scandals in the economic history of the United States. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.