France orders 30,000 women to remove implants

FRENCH medical authorities will this
week tell 30,000 women who received defective breast implants to have
them removed after several suspicious cases of cancer.

Quoting senior medical officials, the daily Liberation
reported today that before the end of the week authorities will ask all
women who received implants supplied by the Poly Implant Prothese
(PIP) company to have them removed.

PIP was shut down and its
product banned last year after it was revealed to have been using
non-authorised silicone gel that caused abnormally high rupture rates
of its implants.

Health officials said last week that eight cases
of cancer, mainly breast cancer, had been reported in women who had
received the PIP implants.

"It is urgent for all women who have
PIP implants to return to see their surgeons," French government
spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse told Liberation.

Police have received 2000 complaints from women who received the
implants and have opened a criminal investigation into the firm.

Source