28 avril, 2005 10:07

By Sandy Miller

Times-News writer

TWIN FALLS -- Pam Dowd remembers just where she was when an FDA advisory panel approved lifting a 13-year-old partial ban on silicone implants.

It was two weeks ago, and she was sitting in the hallway outside the hearing room at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Panel members were asked why they voted the way they did.

"One woman doctor said, 'At least women have a choice now, and if it doesn't work, tough luck I guess.' I was just aghast," Dowd, a former Twin Falls resident, said Monday after returning home to Boise from the nation's capital.

Tough luck, indeed. Dowd has spent more than 20 of her 57 years in pain, which she blames on three silicone breast implants that ruptured and leaked silicone into her body. Although she knew a long trip would be tiring, she and her daughter, Brenna, got into their 21-year-old motor home and made the trip from Boise to Washington, D.C., so Dowd could testify before the panel.

"They have approved a toxic product that can bring financial disaster not only to the person with the implants, but also to the American taxpayers because they're going to pay for the medical care," Dowd said. "It's a toxic product that only benefits plastic surgeons and the companies that make the implants."

Dowd's decision to have implants was not one made out of vanity. She was just 27 years old and lying in bed one morning when her cat walked across her chest and she felt something hard in her left breast. She was concerned, but not alarmed.

Pam Dowd, right, and her daughter Brenna traveled in their motor home from Boise to Washington, D.C., to testify at a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel about the dangers of silicone breast implants. Dowd first got an implant in 1980, after a radical mastectomy due to breast cancer. After trouble with several implants, Dowd had them taken out in 1995.

"I had no family history," Dowd said. "They thought it might just be a cyst."

But it was more than a cyst. She went into surgery for a biopsy and woke up to a radical mastectomy.

Dowd bounced back. She got a prosthesis and got much-needed support from volunteers with Reach for Recovery, a program of the American Cancer Society that links up new cancer survivors with veteran cancer survivors. And she met a very nice gentleman named Carrol Dowd. They married in January 1977.

"He accepted me scars and all," Dowd said of the love of her life, who died in December of heart complications.

It was during a fishing trip down the Salmon River with friends that Dowd first began thinking of reconstructive surgery. The prosthesis was uncomfortable and wouldn't stay in place.

"We had stayed in the same bunkhouse," Dowd said. "I spent two nights worrying about the pack rats hauling it off."

In 1980, Dowd made an appointment with a Boise plastic surgeon, who showed her a slide show and gave her some pamphlets to read on reconstructive surgery.

"There was no talk of dangers back then," Dowd said.

At around the same time, Dowd developed problems in her right breast and had it removed. Dowd eventually got two new silicone breasts. But her happiness was short-lived. Less than three months later, the implant on the left side leaked, so she was wheeled back into surgery and doctors put in a new implant. It was the first of several replacement surgeries after her implants ruptured.

Meanwhile, Dowd got sick. She broke out in a rash and was sometimes so weak, she'd fall down. She developed a cough that wouldn't go away.

She asked her Boise surgeon to take the implants out in 1992. But he insisted Dowd's health problems were not caused by the implants.

"He told me the problem was caused by a bunch of hysterical women and their attorneys," Dowd said.

Dowd's surgeon isn't the only one who doesn't see a link between silicone implants and illness.

"Too many medical professionals want to quote the studies of the early '90s that say there's no connection between silicone and connective tissue disease," Dowd said. "There haven't been enough independent studies. We do have studies paid for by plastic surgeons and companies that make a profit."

In 1995, Dowd traveled to the University of Utah and had the implants taken out.

Despite her health problems, Dowd remained an active participant in life. She even served on the Twin Falls City Council in the early 1990s. She also took on the cause of getting the message out on the dangers of silicone implants, making the trip to Washington, D.C., a couple of times to share her testimony.

During one of those trips, a doctor brought an implant taken out of one of his patients to show legislators how damaged it was.

"They shut down the hearing for 15 minutes while they cleaned the area and said no one was to display any more biohazardous materials," Dowd said.

Dowd's testimony this time focused on the insurance issue. Not long before he died, Carrol had gone off his private insurance and on to Medicare, and Dowd had to find another insurance policy for herself. Insurance companies refused to sign her on after finding out she'd had implants. Many other women share her frustration.

"If, as the manufacturers and members of the (plastic surgeons association) repeatedly claim, there is no connection between implants and health problems, then why the insurance denials?" Dowd asked the panel.

Perhaps some of the most moving testimony came from Brenna, who told the panel she had never known a mother who was healthy.

"Mom would never tell people about all the times she has been unable to walk right, sometimes crawling, many times falling," Brenna told the panel. "She would never tell you about the times when she gets confused or when her legs hurt her so much she has to sit in hot water three times a day to ease the pain."

As for Dowd, she's getting ready for next month's Relay for Life, a benefit for the American Cancer Society, where she'll join other cancer survivors for the first lap around the track. She has no intention of giving up the fight against silicone implants, and she has some advice for women considering getting some of their own.

"Learn to love yourself as you are," Dowd said. "There's something worse than missing a breast and that's knowing you are sick from a toxic product and knowing you can't get that silicone out of your system."

Times-News writer Sandy Miller can be reached at 735-3264 or by e-mail at :

smiller@magicvalley.com.

* Nearly 255,000 women had breast enhancement implant surgery in 2003, nearly twice the number done in 1998. Another 68,000 women received breast implants for reconstruction following mastectomies due to cancer or other diseases.

* In 2003, 45,000 augmentation patients and 17,000 reconstruction patients had their breast implants removed.

* There are two primary types of breast implants -- saline-filled and silicone gel-filled.

* Since 1992, most breast implants have been of the saline variety because in that year, the Food and Drug Administration restricted the use of silicone gel-filled implants over concerns that silicone gel leaking into the body could be harmful. Silicone implants remained available to women for reconstruction after mastectomy or for replacement of ruptured silicone implants.

* Like their silicone counterparts, saline breast implants can rupture and cause infection, pain and loss of feeling.

Earlier this month, an FDA advisory panel approved Mentor Corporation to put silicone gel implants back on the market for wider use.

• Source: Federal Food and Drug Administration