Last week a judge in San Diego ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $344 million in a California lawsuit filed in 2016 involving the company’s transvaginal mesh products. According to the ruling, J&J and Ethicon “deceptively marketed” the pelvic mesh and failed to notify doctors and consumers of the product risks, which was also a violation of consumer protection laws in the state. J&J will appeal the ruling, a company spokesperson told the AP.

Surgical mesh products and their side effects have been the focus of controversy for several years. Last April FDA ordered Boston Scientific and Coloplast to remove all of the remaining transvaginal surgical meshes for use in pelvic organ prolapse from the U.S. market. In November 2018, FDA announced that it would be putting additional patient safety measures in place, which included actions involving surgical mesh used for transvaginal surgical repair.