What a wonderful post.  Thanks, Alex, I feel so much better now.  (I was
kind of wondering.)

kili

No Alex, Ilena Rosenthal is not a breast cancer survivor.
Ilena Rosenthal never had breast implants either.
I also believe that Ilena Rosenthal has a screaming mee-mee mission to just
'outlaw' breast implants, no matter what.

While those of us who were actually damaged by breast implants seek answers
for ourselves we can certainly understand a breast cancer woman's desire to
have them.  Safety, and informed consent are the key issues for a woman's
choice.  The FDA has an enormous burden and must leave no stone unturned
prior to any approval.  Then it is a woman's choice.

John,

I am sorry for the loss of your wife.  Please let me speak from the
experience of a BC patient who underwent total reconstruction at the
age of 33.

I waited 5 1/2 years before undergoing total reconstruction for a
radical mastectomy.  The PS listed the all the positives and I fell
right into the plastic surgeons' money pit of repeat surgeries.

Had anyone asked me within the first 3-5 years how happy I was with the
reconstruction, I would have said I was happy with it, even though by
the end of the 3rd year, I had undergone two replacements.

I have undergone numerous surgeries and need more to fix this total
disaster that I call a chest.  The insurance company that paid for all
the reconstruction refused coverage when I lost my health insurance
after my husband's retirement.

What plastic surgeons do not tell women is that they have not done
long-term studies on the impact reconstruction surgeries have on the
life of the patient. (Patients who have had the reconstruction longer
than 5 years)  I attempted to get data from the ASPRS in 2000.  None
existed.  The lady who called me from the ASPRS told me it was "too
onerous" on their membership to expect doctors to report the repeat
surgeries and problems with the reconstruction.  She suggested if I
wanted that data, I should call all the plastic surgeons and ask.
Their membership at that time was around 5000.  Lot of phone calls to
make for an individual.

The implant manufacturers and the plastic surgeons use breast cancer
patients as a blade on the engine of a fast moving implant train.  It
is time our government stopped allowing breast cancer patients to be
used as guinea pigs.  Time we were no longer used as the poster
children for that industry without a conscience.

There is no such thing as a safe breast reconstruction and no man can
know the pain that comes along with these surgeries.  When doctors move
muscle from one part of the body and put it somewhere else, it creates
critical painful problems.

It isn't a simple matter of all "surgeries have some risk". With breast
reconstruction, it is a sick game of using women whose bodies are
already vulnerable to add money into the bank account of a greedy
industry.

Implants do more than mask possible tumors of the breast.  They mask
the heart and make it difficult to diagnose critical cardiac
complications.  While the studies do show no increased risk of breast
cancer and implants, they DO show an increase in brain and lung cancer.
Plastic surgeons happily gloss over this as they play on the hearbreak
of women, diagnosed with cancer, wanting to look "normal" again.

When I say there is no such thing as a safe breast implant, I am not
just tossing a dart in the dark.  I have personally examined over
300,000 breast implant documents from manufacturers and the ASPRS.
This has been one of the sickest games ever played on women around the
world.

The manufacturers knew the dangers.  They knew the silicone migrated
through the body in their ape studies in the mid 60's.  They knew it
settled in the vital organs.  They killed the beagles when they began
to get adverse reports.  They paid for the studies the doctors tout as
saying implants are safe.  I have copies of the checks Dow paid for the
Harvard Nurses' Study.  He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

As a public, we believe the FDA is protecting us.  They never saw the
study criteria from the Harvard study, just the results.  When I sent
an FOIA for that study, amongst others, they had nothing of the
criteria and had to print out the study results from the internet.

To see a portion of some of the documents I have OCRd from the actual
evidentiary documents, please visit my web site.
http://yukonmom47.tripod.com/

I wish you well.

Pam Dowd
Implant Veterans of Toxic Exposure
31 year Breast Cancer Survivor
25 1/2  year Breast Cancer Reconstruction Veteran