My last thought will be with the people suffering from hernia mesh
Our thoughts are with French actor / theatre director and hernia mesh advocate Arnaud Dennis who is in an assisted dying clinic in Belgium. In this powerful interview the 42 year old speaks about how he is awaiting approval for euthanasia after devastating complications from a hernia mesh that destroyed his life.
In this final public appeal, he denounces the major health scandal of mesh, giving his last thoughts to the hundreds of implant victims he has represented in France and warns of systemic medical and institutional failures – as well as the conflicts of interests /payments from industry to surgeons, which continue to help fuel the lucrative mesh machine.
Arnaud’s interview is translated below.
Actor Arnaud Denis, in palliative care: “My last thought will be with the victims of hernia implants”
From his hospital room in Belgium where he has been hospitalized since March 18 in palliative care, the actor Arnaud Denis, victim of an anti-hernia implant since 2023, agreed to answer exclusively the questions of the EBRA group, of which your newspaper is a part. The 42-year-old director is about to get the green light from doctors to resort to euthanasia.
“I consider that I have tried everything. Really everything. His decision has been made for “at least six months”. The actor Arnaud Denis (three Molière nominations) is about to have his request for euthanasia granted in Belgium, where he has been hospitalized in palliative care since March 18. Despite the deterioration of his health, the 42-year-old playwright and director agreed to confide in a long interview given exclusively to the EBRA group, of which this newspaper is a part.
He tells us about this personal approach, evokes the ongoing debate in France on the end of life (“I find it unworthy that there is a taboo in France,” he comments), but above all he raises a final cry of alarm against anti-hernia implants.
Implanted in 2023 following a right inguinal hernia, Arnaud Denis had to have his polypropylene prosthesis retracted a few months later in the United States. But the damage was done.
He was diagnosed with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (a neurological and immune disease) and Asia syndrome. The latter is an inflammatory syndrome characterized by the appearance of various physical and/or neurological symptoms (intense fatigue, cognitive impairment, chronic pain, etc.) following exposure to an adjuvant.
Arnaud Denis was the first to sound the alarm against this “health scandal”. Through the victims’ collective he founded, he collected between “600 and 700 testimonies”. It is to them that his last thoughts will go.
“I can’t walk anymore, I can’t wash myself anymore”
You are hospitalised in a palliative care unit in Belgium. Does this mean that your health has deteriorated?
“Yes, very seriously. It continues to deteriorate inexorably since this operation where I had a hernia prosthesis implanted in July 2023. I was seen for a very serious deterioration in my general condition, resulting from multiple complications related to this surgery. The doctors recognize, when reading my medical file, the causal link with the implant. I suffer from severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (a neurological and immune disease) as well as ASIA syndrome, which means that my body has had a disproportionate inflammatory reaction by rejecting the implant. There is also a doubt about a possible nosocomial infection of the prosthesis, but which could never be objectified because it was not analyzed after the explantation, despite my prior request. »
What are your symptoms?
“Today, it’s the same as a year ago, but worse. That is to say, I can no longer walk, I can no longer wash myself, I can no longer digest properly. I stagnate at around 69 kilos for 1.84 meters, but I barely eat one meal a day. I developed cervico-cranial instability. This means that I can no longer carry my neck. I’m bedridden almost 24 hours a day. My daily routine consists of eating one meal a day and taking a few steps in the room. I am given a lot of painkillers because of the muscle wasting. I take Gabapentin. For the moment, I’m trying to resist, but I’m not far from morphine. »
Do you plan to return to France?
“I don’t know if I’ll have the strength. I don’t really want to come back to France because the trip here has already cost me a lot physically in terms of pain. »
I’m more afraid to continue like this than to die”
You are in Belgium for a request for euthanasia…
“I had obtained the green light from two doctors during a first trip. I can’t confirm this officially, but the third doctor should give a positive report for this request. So, a priori, my request will be granted. »
What will happen once this green light is obtained?
“Once I have the official green light, I will choose a date according to the evolution of my suffering.”
“My decision was made at least six months ago, when I started to no longer be able to wash myself and to fall from indignity to indignity. I kept hope for about a year and a half, fighting, doing everything I was advised to do, renutrition, resuming effort. To this day, I know deep down that it won’t get any better, I consider that I have tried everything. Really everything. »
Are you afraid?
“I was afraid of dying a year ago. Now, I’m more afraid to continue like this than to die. Fear is reversed. The more you advance towards decay, the less afraid you are of death. »
“I’m too tired to be angry”
How do you feel? Sadness? Anger? Disappointment?
“I try to work with psychologists in Belgium to leave as peacefully as possible. Especially with my loved ones, that’s what matters most to me at this stage. I’m too tired to be angry, but I still have a lot of resentment against an institutional denial that I read in too many victims(*). I still have a lot of resentment against the medical system that allows the patient not to be informed of the complications related to the implant and not accompanied when they arise. I also have resentment against the French judicial system, from which I expect nothing, nothing at all. I will say it until my last breath: there is no justice in France for the victims of health scandals, as shown by the scandal of polypropylene suburethral slings, Essure implants or the Dentexia scandal. »
Yet you filed a complaint against X last January in Paris for “unintentional injuries”…
“I filed a complaint to leave a trace in the legal archives. I don’t think the judges or the medical experts are going to help me or my family after I pass away to establish a causal link with this implant. I think it’s going to be the other way around. »
Do you know what will happen the day you choose the date of your end of life?
“Euthanasia, I believe, means beautiful dead in Greek, so it’s not a violent death. It is not assisted suicide either. It is the doctor who gives this last compassionate care when there is no longer any hope of therapy. It is first of all a first injection. We fall asleep like a general anesthesia and then there is a second injection which is lethal. You don’t feel any pain, you just stop breathing little by little. For me, this request is the culmination of the denial and medical abandonment of my complications in France. »
“All the projects I had, I saw them disappear”
Do you trust the doctor who will perform this procedure?
“Yes, total confidence. I was received in this hospital in Belgium, with all the listening and kindness that I lacked for three years in the French health system. »
Do you regret not having been able to use this procedure in France?
“Yes, I find it unacceptable that in France, at this time, this last care is not granted in cases of very serious attenuation of the general condition and loss of dignity, because, ethically, even if we don’t know what is after death, I see here, in palliative care, people suffering. I find it unworthy that there is a taboo in France.
Before this tragedy, you had plans…
“I had lots of projects, lots of shows that I wanted to put on in the theatre. I was putting on a play by Jean Anouilh, Pauvre Bitos ou le dîner de tête, I was supposed to stage Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme in a Parisian theatre. All the projects I had, I saw them disappear and be assigned to others under my nose. Since this operation, I have had to mourn successively everything that constitutes the dignity of a man’s life at the age of 42. My work, my sexuality, my digestion… »
Since 2023, you have been warning about the adverse effects caused by anti-hernia implants. What would you like your mobilization to lead to?
“I would like the suturing method [practiced before the arrival of the implants] to return to France at the request of patients who do not wish to be implanted. I would like the implant leaflet to be presented to patients during the first consultation, and not sent by the manufacturer after a complaint has been filed. I also hope that the 15 complications related to these implants and the diseases that result from them will be recognized by surgeons, and monitored by the medical profession, because nothing is offered to patients who are suffering. We also ask that the psychologization of patients’ pain stop. It is no longer acceptable to hear from surgeons “your pain is in the head”. This is the latest institutional insult that pushes to suicide.
French surgeons must also be trained in explantation. We also want medical devices, especially hernia prostheses, to benefit from more clinical trials on humans, as with drugs.
I would also like to alert you to the composition of these polypropylene prostheses. Some immunologists and researchers make a direct link between the degradation of microplastics and colorectal cancers in young people. We cannot, on the one hand, say that we are no longer allowed to drink a cocktail with a plastic straw because microplastics are dangerous for the body, and implant them directly on the digestive system. We want to know where the polypropylene that makes up these prostheses comes from! »
“We have documented cases of pregnant women who have been implanted and who have had to have an abortion”
Through the victims’ collective that you created, you collected testimonies from patients implanted when they were minors as well as from pregnant women. Why does this alert you?
“Our collective has listed, to date, six minors implanted: three babies, including one who was 14 months old when he was implanted seventeen years ago, and a 15-year-old girl. In the instructions for implants, it is stated that you should not implant people who are growing because the device will not expand with growth. The same goes for pregnant women. Two cases of premature birth were collected from the group of victims, because the prosthesis compressed the fetus. Young women who have hernias must be warned, since surgeons do not prevent them. There are also cases of pregnant women who have been implanted and have had to have an abortion. »
You also denounce conflicts of interest between certain surgeons and manufacturers…
“Thanks to the Transparence Santé website, a public data platform accessible to all, our collective has noted that among the most senior surgeons, very large regular payments of up to 19,000 euros for an expert contract have been paid by prosthesis manufacturing laboratories. Conflicts of interest are dangerous for patients because they can push unscrupulous surgeons to implant even when there is no direct indication: we have collected several testimonies from people who have been implanted even though they did not have a hernia. They had a fatty lipoma or pubalgia! »
“I would like my death not to be in vain”
What image would you like to be kept of you?
“I would like people to remember first of all that I was an actor and director, that I devoted my life and this passion, and that I would have continued to do so for my greatest happiness, without this mutilation, without this poisoning. I would also like to be remembered as a whistleblower, that my death is not in vain because it is worse than dying, it would be dying for nothing. I hope that my death will serve to act on consciences. I know that my words are disturbing, but I represent hundreds of victims all over France. My goal is not to sow fear but to warn about the dangers of these implants. »
To whom will your last thought go?
“To my family, my friends and the people I love, but also to the French victims of hernia prostheses, of all ages, and to those who still don’t know they are victims.”
Do you believe in life after death?
“Not in one lifetime, but in a serene elsewhere but not as told by the hand of man, so not as written in the notice (laughs).”
* When contacted, the French Society of Parietal Surgery-Hernia Club (SFCP-CH) refused to answer our questions. “The association’s committee voted that communication would be done exclusively via the association’s official media,” we were told. Their press release can be found in full on the website https://www.sfchirurgiedigestive.fr/…/communique-de…/
**It is possible on the website of the victims’ collective protheseshernies.fr to consult the medical leaflets of certain implants.
