Ruptured PIP Silicone Breast Implant
All PIP (Poly Implant Prothese Company) brand breast implants, which are French made have been recalled. The PIP Silicone Breast Implant contain industrial-grade silicone that causes abnormally high rupture rates, according to critics. They have been sold in many countries in Europe, South and Central America and beyond, though not in the United. No Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon has used PIP brand breast implant. Now, the French government has opened a criminal investigation into the company. PIP was shut down and its products banned in 2010. By this point, an estimated 400,000 women worldwide had received the PIP implants. Both French and German health authorities are now under fire for not taking action sooner. A German company provided the industrial silicone, and it has just come to light that another German company paid by PIP was in charge of inspecting the implants. Fears over the implants spread globally last month after a French woman with ruptured implants died of cancer. French health authorities advised 30,000 French women to have their PIP breast implants removal. PIP’s cheap breast implant price made them popular, especially in Britain, where an estimated 50,000 women got them. The British government is taking a more cautious approach than the French. It has not yet recommended the mass removal of the implants. But many clinics, including those that provide breast reconstruction for cancer patients, say they bought the PIP implants in good faith and will go out of business if made to bear the full costs of removal.The Czech government on January 5th, 2012 recommended women wearing PIP implants have them removed. And on January 6th, some 200 Venezuelan women say they will join a French lawsuit against the company. Plastic surgeons began informing health authorities about the high rupture rate as early as 2007. And in 2008 and 2009, they kept contacting them. It was clear there was a serious problem with these implants. French television showed footage on Thursday of investigators and a judge searching the factory of the Poly Implant Prothese company, or PIP, in southernFrance.
There are a lot of questions from US patients about PIP breast implants. The fact is that FDA banned sales and use of PIP silicone implants in the year 2000. Even, prior to the ban, a very, very small number of patients had PIP implant in US. So there should be no reason to be concerned for US women with silicone breast implant.