14 September 2005

Expert Advisory Panel on Breast Implants:

I am the founding president of the I.A.S. Implant Awareness Society, incorporated as a society in Victoria, British Columbia in 1994. The Society was registered as a charity in Ottawa in 1996. Our society primarily provides women with breast implant information stemming from medical research and documentation. Our website gets over 25,000 hits a month, more than General Motors or Chrysler Corporation, from locations around the world.

In 1972 I was implanted with Dow Corning silicone breast implants that were claimed to be the ‘new and improved’ 500 series (1970 to 1975). The best ever. Now we learn that they were the Dow implants that caused the most injury. I encapsulated like a rock. On explantation, it was determined that, along with the fill-holes not been properly sealed, they developed holes in the fifth year and onward. No doctor helped me. All claimed the implants were not causing my medical problems, and I was forced by ignorance or incompetence to keep them for 21 years. A specialist has declared, in writing, that I have been totally disabled for the last 10 years. I have severe pain daily, with twisted fingers, spine, and neck. I was explanted 12 years ago.

Two studies, Mayo Clinic by Gabriel et al, 1994 and Harvard, both so severely flawed, one wonders how they ever came to be published. (page 11, of the International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, special issue on Silicone Toxicity Vol.4, Jan.-Mar. 1995.) Unfortunately, the medical doctors who examined the charts only (not one live patient was ever examined in either study) did not understand that this is a multi-system disease and did not understand that to establish causation they need probability, meaning more likely than not, a 51% probability, not a 95% probability (also found on page 11).

Manufacturers and plastic surgeons always exclaim that their implants are new and safe. No breast implant is new or improved. The manufacturers just make minor changes to the same old toxic substances and declare that they are new and improved, promoting them in the news media.

In 1975, the Acta report, Pharmacologica et Toxicologica, from Copenhagen, states on page 6: "The compound and/or its metabolites definitely pass the placental barrier in pregnant mice and activity was also seen in corpora lutea." Breast implants cause difficulties to conceive and also cause miscarriages. Then, in Chapter V, "2.6-cis-diphenylhexamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (KABI 1774) has been shown to cause atrophy of male genital organs, especially in rabbits. "This alone proves beyond any doubt that silicone is very toxic. A little monkey, who washed his hands with silicone hand soap in a demonstration for Dow Corning, also had his testes shrink severely. This 1975 Acta report declares that silicone is the most toxic man-made substance on earth.

On March 28, 2005, The Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported on these cancer studies. The studies were reported to Congress in The FDA’s Regulation of Silicone Breast Implants in 1993 and no follow-up was ever done. How many women have needlessly died leaving broken homes and tragedy? My cousin died from cancer all throughout her body, after having breast implants for 22 years. Two others in Vancouver area also died from cancer throughout their bodies.

From 1984 to 1989, the Meme implant, again proclaimed as new and improved, was devastating. Covered with furniture foam they were the manufacturer’s greatest. The woman’s body took up the foam almost immediately, causing severe complications by carrying the chemicals to all her internal organs, and the very few surviving ladies today are debilitated beyond comprehension.

Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, a 60-page symposium on Silicone-Related Disorders, sponsored by George Washington University Medical Centre, Washington, DC, and Command Trust Networks, by Roy D. Altman, MD, Norman L. Gottlieb, MD, David S. Howell, MD, editors, is likened to the Holy Grail in medicine, found disease.

In 1995 came the infamous Soy-Oil Implant, again touted as the best yet. It was recalled by the FDA in 1999, after many hundreds of women died almost in hours after a rupture. The "safe" soy oil caused scar tissue to form immediately, and then the woman suffered suffocation in her lungs, and seizures in her heart. Breast implants do not save a life (they are cosmetic even for the cancer patient) as a pacemaker does. Speaking of pacemakers, we women and our children carried in the womb while implanted, cannot ever have a life-saving pacemaker because of its silicone insulation. We implantees become sensitive to all silicone, even that used as anti-caking agents in food aggravate the stomach.

Now we have the cohesive gel; it is the very same gel we had in 1960. What is new?

Absolutely nothing. The body will liquefy this gel; all grade 10 chemistry students know this. I know a woman in New Westminster, B.C., who got these implants in 1962, and is bed-ridden today. She is too ill for removal, and has church members giving her around-the-clock home care. Even today, I have women phoning me who had these cohesive gel implants for less than 2 years and cannot stand the pain they are having. They are crying, "I need to have them out and no doctor is listening, and I do not have any money as I got implanted on credit".

In 2001, Dr. Louise Brinton, an epidemiologist, stated "Implant patients, however, experienced excessive risks of death compared with the general population for brain cancer (SMR =2.45) and suicide (SMR = 1.54). Internal analyses showed a higher overall mortality among the implantees than among the comparison patients (relative risk =1.27, 95%CI =1.0-1.6). This overall excess reflected increases for respiratory tract (SMR = 3.03) and brain (SMR = 2.25) cancers and for suicide (SMR = 4.24). Hardly a safe medical implant, that is not necessary or life saving.

Please err on the side of caution for the sake of the women of Canada, we are depending on you. Here are some facts: Nearly all of the 200,000 users of these implants use the health care system and cost 4 to 8-fold in terms of public health care compared to age-adjusted individuals without implants. That amounts to $8,000,000.00 to $16,000,000.00. Asking the women to sign wavers and absorb all costs is just not going to work out.

How can a plastic surgeon look a woman in the eyes, asking for thousands of dollars, telling her to sign wavers for themselves and the manufacturer, if breast implants are safe? They know they are not safe; I have many articles from Plastic Surgeon’s Journals. Also, the FDA recommends removal of all gel implants before the eighth year of implantation, and no woman is told this. Only a psychopath, a person totally without a conscience, can do this to women. It is more than unbridled greed. There is a very simple test that can be done to tell if breast implants are indeed safe or toxic. Yes, toss 1 or 2 implants into a tropical fish tank and see how long the fish live. The second is, put one into a container pen with cockroaches. They will eat the silicone, you will find they are only able to crawl 9 inches from the implant or dish of silicone gel and then they die. Why in the name of Our Creator, are these abominations being put into women’s bodies for the sake of the manufacturers and their so called safe and effective studies?

Your last in camera meeting had three panel members claiming no conflict of interest. Michael Brook, representing Inamed, is a professor of organosilanes and silicones at McMaster University in Hamilton. Dr. Mitchell Brown and Harry Brandon, received research grants from Mentor and Inamed. All of Canada and into the USA were appalled that these three men were in attendance. Their word and actions are false and they should be fired from their jobs for such gross discrepancies, as they have proved themselves corrupt.

This is why Canada must stand on her own and insist on the long term studies.

Sincerely,

Adella Matthew

President, Implant Awareness Society