When Luna Petagine was diagnosed with cancer aged just 18 months, her mother, Lucy, was plagued with doubts. Had the disease been brought on by something she’d done - or hadn’t done?
Was it a phone mast or car fumes? Was it something in her genes? What could have caused her perfect, precious baby girl to be struck down by this vile disease?
Not for a moment did she consider the answer could lie in an act of vanity, carried out long before she had children. Twelve years ago, Lucy, 40, from Watford, Hertfordshire, paid £3,500 for a breast enlargement operation, taking her from a B cup to a D.
Questions: Lucy Petagine with her daughter, Luna, who lost her battle with cancer last year
Breast enhancements are the most popular cosmetic procedure among British women, mostly for aesthetic reasons, but also to reconstruct breasts following surgery.
They were, however, plunged into controversy last year following the PIP breast implant scandal.
Implants made by the French company Poly Implant Prothèse were found to contain industrial-grade silicone approved for use in mattresses and cushions and known to have a 15 to 30 per cent chance of rupturing.
'I know I had this toxic stuff they were pumping into mattresses inside me, and I know it was leaking. Could it have passed to Luna through my breast milk?'
Lucy, whose husband Mario runs a double glazing company, was initially happy with the results of her operation. She had been a flat-chested teenager and very slim, and her new figure gave her more confidence.
However, she noticed something wrong with her breasts soon after Luna arrived in 2007. They’d been fine for years and she’d had no problems breastfeeding her eldest son Aldo, now eight.
‘But soon after Luna was born, I’d noticed one of my breasts looked lumpy,’ she says. ‘My GP referred me for an ultrasound which showed one of my implants had ruptured. But the consultant at the breast screening clinic said there was absolutely no harm in breastfeeding. He said I should come back once I’d finished breastfeeding Luna, to have them removed and replaced, but I fell pregnant with my third child, Enza, before I could.’
Five weeks after Enza was born in 2008, Luna became tired and lethargic. At first, Lucy and Mario thought it was simply a virus, but then they noticed their little girl was sleeping with her head cocked back in a very unnatural way. After several weeks of A&E visits and tests, Lucy and Mario were told that Luna had a brain tumour.
‘For the next year, we spent our lives in hospitals and my breasts were not even thought about,’ says Lucy.
Then the PIP scandal broke at the beginning of last year. Lucy contacted her surgeon as soon as she heard the news. He said it was very likely that her implants were PIP.
‘I thought: “Oh my God”,’ she says quietly. She immediately had her implants removed and replaced, but at the forefront of her mind was Luna’s health. Luna bravely endured chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and four lots of brain surgery to shrink the tumour. But last summer she began to deteriorate. Scans showed the tumour had grown again and was now inoperable. Five short weeks later, she died at home with her parents by her side.
‘People say time is a great healer, but unfortunately that’s not true,’ says Lucy. ‘We have learned to function, but we are never going to be all right.’
Anxious: Jess Johns is terrified that her eight-month-old son Archie's severe respiratory problems could be linked to her PIP breast implants, one of which ruptured last year
Compounding the family’s grief is the suspicion - now being voiced with increasing urgency among medical professionals - that Lucy’s implants may have contributed to Luna’s illness. The ‘what ifs’ are an almost unbearable torture for Lucy.
‘Cancer can happen to anyone and we don’t know if there is a link,’ she says. ‘But I know I had this toxic stuff they were pumping into mattresses inside me, and I know it was leaking. Could it have passed to Luna through my breast milk? If it does turn out to cause cancer, I just don’t know what I’ll do.’
Understandably, Lucy hasn’t felt brave enough to read a report published last week by Andre Menache, director of consumer protection organisation Antidote Europe, and British environmental campaigner Dr Victoria Martindale.
In it, they raised particular concerns over a chemical in PIP silicone called D4, which has been identified as having endocrine-disrupting properties, meaning it could potentially affect the development of a foetus in the womb.
'I feel terrible guilt, and anger that something I did aged 18 to make me feel better could have harmed my child'
‘Endocrine disruptors have been shown to have widespread effects and there are links with diseases including cancer but not enough investigation has been done,’ says Dr Martindale. ‘D4 is associated with the development of the brain and the nervous system. If an implant ruptured - and remember some women have a silent rupture, and don’t even realise it’s happening - it could affect every system in the body.
‘Given that the vast majority of people who have these implants were female and of reproductive age, there is a public duty to properly investigate.’
Dr Martindale and Mr Menache’s report disputed the findings of evidence in last year’s inquiry, led by NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh, which concluded PIP implants were not toxic or carcinogenic and posed no significant risk to human health.
Indeed, a spokesman for the Department of Health this week repeated the Government’s official position: ‘We stand by the conclusions of the original report and want to reassure women that PIP implants do not pose a significantly increased risk to health.’
But other experts support the call for more detailed research into the potential risks.
Consumed with worry: Gabriella Artini, pictured with son Blake, is expecting another baby in three months. She hopes her child won't be damaged by her by PIP implants
Rajiv Grover, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, says surgeons removing PIP implants have been reporting signs of unusual inflammation in breast tissue, unlike anything they have seen with other implants.
‘Something is different, no question, and what the Government has said does not explain that,’ he insists. He is also concerned that the Government’s research was based on unused PIP implants rather than those that had been removed from women.
Mr Grover says: ‘Things can change when they’ve been inside the body for several years. We know the Medicines And Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which regulates medicines and medical products, did ask surgeons to send in implants they removed from women. If they have these samples it seems a shame they haven’t been tested.’
Jess Johns is another mother who is terrified that her eight-month-old son Archie’s severe respiratory problems could be linked to her PIP breast implants, one of which has ruptured. Jess, 26, had her implants fitted in the summer of 2005 when she was 18. ‘I had no breasts at all. I was desperate to have some curves,’ she says.
Victims of PIP
More than 300,000 women in 65 countries were affected by the PIP breast implant scandal - with 4,000 reported ruptures
‘But then at the beginning of last year I started getting a shooting pain in my left breast and under my arm, and I noticed my breasts were becoming disfigured.’
Concerned, she contacted the Harley Medical Group, the provider that carried out her implant procedure. But they told her that as it was now more than six years since she’d had the operation they were unable to help.
Jess's breast was continuing to cause her pain and in January this year she paid to see a plastic surgeon who said her left implant looked like it had ruptured. Now she is plagued with worry that the leaking implant could be connected to her son's ill health.
Harley Medical Group was the UK’s biggest provider of PIP implants and late last year the company deliberately went into administration, avoiding a potential multi-million-pound legal payout to a group of women demanding compensation.
‘It was around then that I saw on the news the story about PIP implants. I checked my paperwork and to my absolute horror saw that I had them. By that point I was already three months pregnant with Archie.’
Wants them out: Gabriella doesn't care if her breasts will be saggy if the implants are removed
Jess was desperate to have the implants removed, but doctors advised her that it would be unsafe to have the operation while pregnant. Archie was born a healthy baby, and Jess breastfed him for five weeks. But the little boy was soon plagued with respiratory problems.
‘It started off with chest and ear infections,’ says Jess, who is married to Russell, 29, and lives in Barlaston, Staffordshire. ‘Since he was a week old he hasn’t stopped wheezing. The doctors can’t work it out. They’re testing him for everything from allergies to cystic fibrosis.
‘I sit watching him and every time he wheezes, I could cry. I feel terrible guilt, and anger that something I did aged 18 to make me feel better could have harmed my child. I have a seven-year-old, a five-year-old and a 20-month-old who are all perfectly healthy. I carried Archie after the implant ruptured and breastfed him, so of course I am linking the two events. Having these implants is the biggest regret of my life.’
Jess, who cannot afford to have the implants removed privately, is now on a waiting list to have them taken out on the NHS.
Jan Spivey, of the PIP Action Campaign — who had PIP implants fitted after a mastectomy for breast cancer — fears the health risks are not being taken seriously enough.
‘The French, who have had a preventative removal policy from the beginning, have already carried out about 50 per cent of their removals and have recorded inflammatory reactions in the surrounding breast tissue. They acknowledge that PIP implants are toxic,’ she says.
‘In Britain our toxicologists say the molecules are at harmless levels, but who knows what harmful levels are to a developing embryo or a breastfed baby?’
Others, however, fear the report is causing unnecessary anxiety. Dr Karol Sikora, a leading oncologist and medical director of Cancer Partners UK, says: ‘Just because industrial-grade silicone could contain compounds that could affect hormones, there’s absolutely no evidence that it does.
‘The amounts would be very small and in any case, the placenta is a great filter for protecting the baby against toxic chemicals.’
One thing, however, that everyone agrees on is the need for tighter regulation of cosmetic surgery and implants, to ensure such a scandal is never repeated.
At risk: Many women have had to go back under the knife to have defective silicone gel breast implants removed
And despite the Government’s reassurance, many women remain deeply concerned. Gabriella Artini discovered she had been fitted with PIP implants the day after discovering she was pregnant. Now she is consumed with worry over what the silicone in her body could be doing to her unborn child.
She has a number of unusual lumps in her right breast, although scans have not shown any rupture.
‘I wake up every night at 4am and I’m lucky if I get back to sleep by 6am,’ says Gabriella, 35, who runs a corporate relocation company and lives with her partner and seven-year-old son Blake in Farnsfield, Nottinghamshire. ‘When this new report came out, it was like my worst fears had been realised,’ she says.
‘I’ve been trying to get my implants taken out since March, but doctors have told me not to because my breasts will look terrible and saggy. But now with this new report I don’t care what they look like - I just want them out. I imagine all sorts of things - cancer, growth problems, developmental problems.’
Like every other victim of PIPs, once she’s had the implants removed, Gabriella can only wait and hope that the Government is right, and that her baby, due in six months, is healthy.
It’s hope that Lucy Petagine, tragically, doesn’t have. She will forever be haunted by the thought that her PIP implants could have played some role in her daughter Luna’s death.
‘Of course I feel very angry,’ she says. ‘With the private clinics, the NHS and the regulators. My baby is dead, how can I not? I still don’t understand how this could have happened.’
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