Top doctors call for removal of every breast implant given to 50,000 British women
Calls for Government to remove all PIP breast implants
Damning new research shows their shells are faulty putting women at risk
Doctors say casings could degrade and silicone could leak into their bodies
Leaking risk: Surgeons operate to remove a PIP implant in France
Nigel Mercer, former president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, said last night: ‘If you have problems with the outer shell of an implant, then it will act like a sieve and the silicone will just leak out.
The batch testing for these implants was useless so we don’t know which women could be most at risk – it’s a lottery. I’d say to women: Have them out.’
The scandal over French-manufactured PIP implants erupted in 2011 when it was shown that they were more than twice as likely to rupture than other implants and that they were filled with industrial-grade silicone used in mattress production. Women whose implants burst have complained of swollen lymph nodes, lumps and pains in their breasts.
But despite French authorities agreeing to remove the implants from all women fitted with them as a preventative measure, officials in the UK have continued to insist there is insufficient evidence to recommend their routine removal.
Instead, the NHS will pay for women to have them removed only if specialists believe that there is a ‘clinical need’ to do so and if the private clinics that fitted them refuse to remove them. The NHS will not pay to have them replaced. But the latest research has fuelled further calls for the Government to introduce a blanket policy to remove all PIPs because of the risks.
