Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The Commons health committee has asked Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh to delay a decision on licensing silicone-gel breast implants until the committee has conducted a study of the issue.

The motion, passed unanimously, reflects concern among committee members about applications by two U.S. companies to market silicone-gel implants in Canada.

"I'm very afraid for young women who don't know about the problems we had in the '80s with those implants," Bloc Quebecois MP Nicole Demers said in an interview Thursday.

Researchers have found a high rate of complications and hospitalization associated with the implants, which can rupture and break down, and frequently must be replaced or removed.

Demers said a Health Canada technical panel considering the applications is meeting behind closed door and includes two people employed by Mentor and Inomed, the manufacturers.

"It's incredible; that's a conflict of interest right there," she said.

New Democrat Jean Crowder said 80 per cent of breast implants are done for cosmetic reasons.

"We're putting women at risk for things they don't need to be at risk for.

"We want to be sure the process adequately represents women and it's not unduly influenced by industry."

In 1992 manufacturers withdrew silicone implants from the market at the request of Health Canada, but since then the devices have made a quiet comeback.

They are being inserted under a special release program which is supposed to give patients access to non-approved products in cases of serious or life-threatening illness.

In fact, says Demers, implants are being approved for any patient who requests them, and more than 1,300 Canadian women received implants between 1999 and 2002.

"Now they're being told at 15 and 16 they have to be beautiful, that they have to respond to the beauty criteria they see on TV," Demers said.

"Sometimes their parents give them that for their graduation gift - surgery for their breasts."

Health Canada spokeswoman Nathalie Lalonde said 10,000 breast implants have been approved under the special access program in the past two years.

She said the panel is reviewing the applications from Inomed and Mentor and there will be a public forum as well.

Lalonde didn't comment on the health committee's request for a delay.

Pierre Blais, a former Health Canada employee who was among the first to raise questions about breast implants, says the products currently being promoted aren't significantly different from those of the 1980s.

Blais said the special release program is "being abused to the point of ridicule."

He said implant surgery is a major drain on the health system because complications are generally dealt with in the public system, even though the original implant procedure is not covered by medicare.

Blais said if the devices are approved they will be promoted aggressively rather than merely being made available on request.