The alarming truth about breast implants THOUSANDS of women in Ireland have every year...
had the PIP implants in 2006 when she was 32.
‘Having children had obliterated my breasts,’ recalls the 44-year-old divorced mother of two.
‘When I discovered they [the PIP implants] were made of mattress silicone, I had them replaced with Allergan ones. One breast swelled up and I had a lymph gland taken out in 2013.
‘They found “abnormal giant cells” in the tissue they removed, which I was told was sarcoidosis — a type of inflammatory disease.
‘Then they decided that was the wrong diagnosis but no one ever explained what might be wrong with me.
‘I’ve also developed a strange 2c-sized reddish patch under my arm that comes and goes. My GP treats it with steroid cream.
‘I’ve had problems ever since with pain in my shoulder and neck, too. Over the past 18 months I’ve been through the whole menu of diagnostic tools and treatments, with seven MRIs since September.
‘I’m seeing a neck specialist, a shoulder specialist, a rheumatologist and a physiotherapist.’
Elaine, a former long-distance runner who has competed in the London and New York marathons, is mortified by what has happened. ‘I have a mystery illness which huge amounts of resources are being thrown at,’ she adds.
‘I will be highly embarrassed if it turns out to be the implants that caused it. I only found out about this implant issue in the past month or so.
‘I never realised other people were having all the same problems as me.’ Campaigners Jan Spivey and Dawn Beaven, who run sepaPaul rate support groups for breast implant patients, estimate there are at least 70,000 women worldwide who are active on social media forums and have been affected by breast implant-related disorders, suggesting the real number is many times higher.
Dawn, 57, a former stuntwoman, has had four sets of implants and suffers from the lung condition emphysema, which she fears may be linked to silicone, and is on the lung transplant waiting list.
‘These implants are a time bomb and should be banned,’ she says. ‘They all bleed gel, no matter what brand they are — and that includes the newer ones.
‘The last set I had are in my drawer, leaking away slowly after 20 years.’
Balen, a medical negligence specialist who has represented hundreds of implant victims over the past 20 years, says modern imaging techniques should make it possible to prove a direct causeand-effect relationship between silicone and these illnesses.
‘I don’t think women understand that having breast implants is a major operation that they’re going to have to have redone several times in their life, with no guarantee of anything except that they will rupture and fail eventually,’ he says. ‘It’s a foreign body and the body’s defence mechanisms will attack it.’
Others have criticised health chiefs and the regulators for their perceived lack of concern. It remains the case that there is still no national breast implant register in Ireland, despite the fact that Britain set one up in 2016, four years after the PIP scandal.
Dr Siún Murphy of the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin said: ‘The Irish public are very aware of the PIP breast implant problem which occurred a number of years ago.
‘We are still sorting out the mess that these implants have caused, removing sticky silicone from breasts.
‘One of the main non-accredited clinics which used PIP implants disappeared soon after. It left patients with no information accessible to them regarding their now flagged dangerous implants.’
According to the latest figures available from whatclinic.ie, around 12,000 Irish women looked into breast augmentation in 2016.
‘These reports of problems with implant-associated illness are very worrying,’ says Professor Frame. ‘It warrants further investigation.’
In December, Allergan implants were taken off the market in Europe due to a ruling in France though the country’s National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products said it had not ‘identified any immediate risk for the health of women carrying the implants concerned.’
An Allergan spokesman said: ‘Multiple well-powered studies and organisations have confirmed there is no evidence to support an association between breast implants and systemic illness.
‘Allergan takes this situation very seriously and is committed to providing all stakeholders with timely and informative updates on this issue. There is a positive benefit-risk profile for textured implants. The safety and quality of our breast implants is something that we monitor very closely.’ The spokesman said a number of well-powered studies and organisations including the Institute of Medicine have confirmed there is no evidence to support an association between breast implants and systemic diseases.
He added: ‘As a company, this is something we closely monitor through post-approval and surveillance studies, as well as patient reported data and we report this data directly to FDA and other global regulatory authorities.’
Others may beg to differ. Daisy, who had Allergan implants, says she has spoken to two solicitors to see if she can pursue a claim.
‘Allergan say you shouldn’t have silicone inserted under the age of 22,’ she added.