Blais and implant contamination

[Guest guest]

I am not sure how old this article is, but the reference to a

date " last January " in regards to the moratorium on implants leads

me to believe it is sometime in 1992 or 1993...old enough for them

to have learned alot more by now.

Patty

The Canadian Press - Montreal Gazette

Ottawa chemist Pierre Blais

and colleagues at Laval University in Quebec

City say they have found large colonies of germs in surgically

removed breast implants.

We're finding huge amounts of infectious materials in both saline

filled silicone- gel breast implants, " Blais said in an interview.

The implants were removed mostly from Canadian and American women

who were experiencing infection, respiratory and immune-system

problems and swelling and fever, Blais said.

A couple of implants were so contaminated with fungi and other

germs that they had turned coal black. " Blais and his colleagues are

using high- powered microscopes to examine the germs.

But " in some cases, we could easily see signs of the infected

material all without a microscope, " he said.

We're talking about grams of infected materials, not tiny amounts.

It includes bacteria, exotic fungi, some of which grow like miniature

mushrooms.

Some of the saline implants have poorly designed valves that

unfortunately can allow protein and plasma from the women to seep

into the liquid. This may allow the germs to proliferate. And when

some of these colonies get big enough, the germs could release

toxins that could affect body tissue and nerves. "

The greatest danger to women with contaminated implants is that

the infectious material could spread through the body if the implants

leak or burst, he said.

" Once infection is in the body, the immune system would be forced

to react and it could trigger an inflammatory process. "

So far the chemists have studied 20 sets of saline- filled

implants and three sets of silicone- gel implants from various

manufacturers. All the implants had some germs.

The variety and high degree of contamination suggest that

manufacturing problems may be at fault, particularly sterilization,

Blais said. But, he said has no proof that was the case.

Nor is there any way of knowing how many of the several million

sets of implants inserted in women in North America, mostly in the

last seven years, have been contaminated by germs, he said.

We've only recently started looking at infection in implants and so

we don't know how widespread the problem is. "

Blais cautioned that women with implants shouldn't jump to

conclusions on the basics of early of early study results because

little is known about breast-implant contamination and the processes

that might cause harm. He is to present evidence from the study of

contaminated implants at a conference in Ohio, this weekend.

A moratorium on silicone gel filled implants began in the United

States and Canada last January after the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration found safety data on several products inadequate.

The implants are now available to women in the United States who

enroll in limited studies. Saline filled implants remain widely

available in the U.S. and Canada.