Giangiacomo Beretta
Dear All, for a number of reasons I would like to add some further points to my message posted August 14th:
(AS ALREADY STATED IN THE FIRST POST, IN THE FOLLOWING I WILL NOT MENTION INDIVIDUAL NAMES, NUMBERS AND NATIONALITIES OF PARTICIPANTS)
(1) The first footprint was left by Dr Malacco in 2011, when he wanted to go deeper in the understanding of the adverse effects he observed in patient(s) with PIP, that recovered a good health status after removal and replacements of intact implants.
(2) We have been put in contact in the spring of 2012, and we agreed to tackle the task of the analysis of the PIP gel.
(3) We achieved the publication of our first article in February 2013 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23454600).
(4) In the period October 2012/January 2013 I managed to contact PIP groups on Facebook. I did that trying to find as much informations as possible on the issue.
The one who started an active and constructive discussion was the PIP Implant Forum / PIP Action Campaign with their admins and members, since the beginning they have been very active and helpful in providing us with essential and useful informations, documentation and data collected from the Pip Action Campaign.
In the same period we received intact explants from anonymous donors.
(5) After finishing the submission of the first article (December 2012) I realised the potential importance of the “cloudy late periprosthetic fluid” or “sterile puss” observed at operation in some PIP patients, never observed with other implants brands (at lest in the scientific literature). To collect such samples (which are very difficult to find here in Italy for many reasons), PIP Action Campaign put us in contact with Mr Adrian Richards, who already treated several cases of PIP victims and knew very well of what we were talking about.
(6) Thanking to Adrian, I had in my lab in short time the specimens that, after testing and interpretation of the results, allowed the publication of the second article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23835059) in June 2013).
Part of the work has been also anticipated to the Courts in Marseille, for the trial against JCM.
(7) Once established what was wrong with the PIP gel and with the consequences of its diffusion (the formation of the extra-implant silicone emulsion) I decided to move the attention to the implants envelopes. As soon as we look at the specimens I suspected there was some variability in the shell structure that may have been responsible for the different behavior of the implants in different patients (to last intact for long time, to bleed, to rupture). The Pip Action Campaign helped in finding more patients available to provide further specimens.
Specimens came at same time from member of PIP Implants Scotland.
The rest is in the previous post, from point 6 forward.
I would like to reiterate that for what concerns this last part of the research on PIP implants I HAVE NOT AND I WILL NOT MENTION INDIVIDUAL NAMES, NUMBERS OF PARTICIPANTS (SMALL OR BIG THEY ARE) AND THEIR NATIONALITIES OF THE PARTICIPANTS (ITALIAN, ENGLISH, SCOTTISH OF FROM ANY OTHER COUNTRY THEY ARE), this both for ethical reasons and for the potential introduction of bias in the study results.
Best regards and thank you for your attention and participation !
GB PS. as for the first post: I apology if some points are not clear or if I missed something. Of course I am fully available to answer your questions (if am able to do it !) and to receive any comments or suggestions from you !
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23454600
PIP Implants can be sent for analysis regardless of where you are in the world. Regrettably as many as half a million women and their families have been affected globally by the PIP implant fraud.
Participating in studies on PIP implants will not provide all the answers but it gives all of us hope that more will be learned about the effects of contaminated silicones on our bodies for the future.
Dr Beretta, the senior chemist undertaking the analyses at Milan University, talks about his preliminary findings in some detail on PIP Action Campaign’s social networking and Facebook pages. Please feel free to join in the discussions and to learn more about PIP Implant Analysis at our Facebook Group:
Request to join the PIP Action Campaign group on Facebook or find us on the web at PIP Action Campaign and PIPSLEAK
http://pipactioncampaign.org/health-survey/pip-implant-analysis/
