Do you need your implants checking?
As concern grows over the potential for harm caused by the faulty breast implants manufactured by Poly Implant Prothèses (PIP), the different stances taken by the French and UK authorities over how to handle the consequences bear examination says leading global aesthetics journal, PRIME.
Last month, French health minister Xavier Bertrand issued a statement urging the 30,000 French women with PIP implants to have them removed as a preventive measure. But the same statement says such action is not urgent.
“The message is as confusing as it is worrying and puts too much onus onto the women with the implants,” says lead medical devices analyst, Ashley Yeo of PRIME.
UK health secretary Andrew Lansley has adopted a more measured approach. He announced a review, but says the risk of rupture for the 40,000 UK women with implants is 1%, whereas in France it is put at 3.6%. The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) says there is no risk of cancer from leakage of the industrial grade filler used by PIP.
In France, several cases of cancer have been reported in women with the implants, but the authorities say they are not necessarily linked to the faulty implants. One woman with an anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) cancer died in late 2011.
These rather less than categorical statements provide little comfort to the affected implantees in the 60 or more countries served by PIP: the Marseilles, France company exported to Brazil, Argentina and other South American countries and all of the major EU countries, among others.
The PIP company was closed down by the French government, and has no money to pay for corrective surgery for the women that want it. The French government latterly said that taxpayers would fund explant procedures, but not new implants if original surgery was not done for post-breast cancer reconstruction reasons.
“Not all women who had PIP breast implants for cosmetic reasons will be able to afford a second implant, even if the explant procedure is paid for. This would leave thousands of women with little choice other than to live with their existing implants – and the fear (well founded or not) of possible sinister effects should a rupture occur,” explains Yeo.
So, while we await the forthcoming UK review, it must be asserted that the question of who pays for explants is, for many women, not at all the end of the story.
The hesitant rectifying actions being taken by government authorities also says much for how cosmetic surgery is still perceived. Would progress be swifter were this not breast implants but another type of healthcare device?
Tagged in Breast Cancer Health