Myrl Jeffcoat myrlj@jps.net

MS. SCHECHTER: Hello. My name is Debbie Schechter. And I have no conflicts of interest. I'm here today as an attorney and a former policy analyst and as the friend of a woman who had breast implants and who killed herself.

Did she kill herself because of her breast implants? Research may help us answer that question. Studies conducted in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark each found that women who had breast augmentation were three times as likely to commit suicide as other women their age in those countries. Those findings seem eerily similar, making it hard to dismiss.

The groups were matched in race and age, but women who have breast augmentation may differ from other women in important ways that make them more vulnerable to suicide.

National Cancer Institute scientists conducted a study of women who had breast implants or other plastic surgery at least seven years earlier. The breast augmentation patients were more than four times as likely to kill themselves as other female plastic surgery patients.

Unlike the European studies, the NCI study was using a comparison group with very similar health habits, socioeconomic status, and concern about their appearance.

A fifth study of women in Denmark found that women with breast augmentation were five to seven times more likely to take antidepressants, compared to breast reduction patients and another comparison sample.

One of the interesting aspects of these studies is that the four European studies were all funded by Dow-Corning, the silicone manufacturer. They accurately reported the findings but would not concede that implants might possibly cause suicide.

The funded a review article by Joseph McLaughlin that questioned the findings, speculating that depression and other possible causes of suicide probably were more common among the augmentation patients, even before they had breast implants.

An article by Tom Joiner funded by the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons went even further, claiming that the suicide rate would probably have been even higher had the women not been so fulfilled because of their breast implants.

Knowing P. J. Brent, I have a different theory. P. J. was very ill. And she felt very badly because she believed she was responsible for making her daughters ill from breast-feeding with implants.

P. J. did not have low self-esteem. In fact, to the contrary, P. J. was vibrant, articulate, peppy, loving, warm, helpful. I lived in her community. And I can tell you that when news about her suicide spread as quickly as you can imagine to the thousands who came to her funeral, the one thing everybody said is that she is the last person in the world that we would expect to commit suicide.

I spoke to her the week before she committed suicide. And she was loving, concerned, peppy on the phone. She was an incredible human being. I respected her and loved her. But her illness and the frustration of lack of effective medical care for her conditions got to her.

If you look at the data from Mentor Corporation, you will see that breast implants do not make women feel better about themselves. Two years later, implanted women feel worse or the same about their lives and themselves. Inamed found the same result in the studies they provided to the FDA in 2003.

Finally, do breast implants cause suicide? They might. In light of the company's own data showing a decrease in quality of life after silicone implants, shouldn't that question be answered more conclusively before implants are approved by the FDA?

Thank you.