The high failure rate of the ASR hip system was made public through the reports of the Australian National Joint Replacement Registry.  The negative feedback thrown at the all-metal hip implant of DePuy Orthopaedics urged the company to recall the devices in 2009.Recent reports say that an Australian government agency might require doctors to report defective implants.

Evidences that point to the recall is being gathered and investigated by Australia, as was done by the United States. The director of the Australian National Joint Replacement Registry, Dr. Stephen Graves, says that the registry has detected a 50-percent, higher-than-normal failure rate in the ASR hip system. The director remarked that “It is a complete untruth that DePuy did not have reason to withdraw the ASR before now; we have been telling them since 2007, but they allowed it to be used on thousands of people.”
 
The Therapeutic Goods Administration called for the pull out the faulty implant two years after it first knew about the failures. Health advisories were issued by the TGA to doctors but not to general consumers.Dr. Graham Mercer, president of the Australian Orthopaedic Association, says that the TGA should act faster on prostheses shown to be failing at higher rates by the National Joint Replacement Registry, which is operated by the association. Moreover, he calls for a tighter premarket testing of a prosthesis before general use is permitted.
 
The concern on all-metal hip implant was tackled in the recently concluded Australian Senate Community Affairs Committee hearing.It recommended that the TGA require doctors to report any incidents of defective devices in their patients. The report states that the "The committee recommends the Department of Health and Ageing introduce mandatory reporting for health practitioners to the TGA on relevant issues in certain circumstances including problems with medical devices." Also part of the Senate’s recommendation is the clampdown on incentives given to doctors by pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers for using their products.
 
 The News Australia reported that in the country, roughly 5,000 patients were given the DePuy ASR hip implant. Even before the issuance of the DePuy hip replacement recall, Australia already had a functioning artificial joint replacement registry. Researches from both Australia and UK’s National Joint Registry helped the consumers become aware of the device-related problems of DePuy ASR recipients.Doctors and patients in the United States now pay close attention to the registry’s findings even if they are tracking patients who are non-US citizens because no such registry exists in the country.

Reference:
news.com.au/breaking-news/doctors-could-be-forced-to-report-faults/story-e6frfku0-1226203054020

mydepuyrecall.com/depuy-hip-implant-recall-history.htm

smh.com.au/national/health/surgeons-happy-to-be-supported-by-companies-behind-hip-implants-fiasco-20111010-1lhmh.html

theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/medical-devices-in-spotlight/story-e6frg8y6-1226122720529