Suspect breast implants rebranded before sale to 1,000 Dutch women
Netherlands health authority says a Dutch firm bought implants made by PIP, the French company at centre of health scare
Around 1,000 Dutch women have breast implants of the suspect kind made by a French company but sold under a different name, a Netherlands health official has said, broadening a scandal that could affect 300,000 or more women worldwide.
Health authority spokeswoman Diane Bouhuijs said a Dutch company had bought implants made by Poly Implant Prothese, which went bankrupt in 2010 after French authorities shut its doors. It is now under investigation. They were sold rebranded as "M-implants".
"We estimate 1,000 women in the Netherlands have them. We have advised them to consult their physician," Bouhuijs said. She declined to name the Dutch company.
The rebranding expands the controversy in which PIP, once the world's third-largest maker, is accused of using industrial-grade instead of medical-grade silicone in some of its implants, which made them cheaper. They were sold in various European and Latin American countries.
The company's founder, Jean-Claude Mas, was able to charge lower prices for the implants using the non-approved silicone.
Health authorities have cited no evidence of increased cancer risk, but say they have higher rates of rupture that could cause inflammation and irritation.
France urges its 30,000 women with PIP implants to have them removed, but other countries including Britain and Brazil say women should check with their doctors.
Mas's lawyer Yves Haddad has said that his 72-year-old client is in poor health but ready to respond to any court summoning.
No one has been charged in the case but sources say a Marseilles court could soon announce fraud charges against four to six ex-PIP employees. An investigation into involuntary homicide is going on, after the death from cancer in 2010 of a woman who had PIP implants.
Haddad denied that Mas was in hiding, reiterating that he was still in southern ! France's Var region.
"He's currently in very bad health because he has just undergone a difficult surgery that prevents him from walking," Haddad said.
The news that Mas had recently been operated on was confirmed by a second source, who cited a vascular problem.
"He is worried by the importance this matter is taking on. He is angry at those who pointlessly add to people's suffering," Haddad said.
Haddad denied reports that Mas was a former butcher, saying that before founding PIP in 1991 he worked for more than 15 years as a medical sales representative for Bristol Myers.
In France, a plastic surgeon defended PIP implants, saying their rupture rates were no higher than rivals'. Patrick Perichaud, based in Toulon, implanted more than 600 women with them between 2001 and 2009, and said he as a surgeon did not get any incentive to steer clients towards the company.
The scare was "more psychological than scientific", he said; no concrete link had been made between PIP implants and cancer. Since the start of the PIP scandal in 2010, Perichaud has re-operated on 148 women to remove the implants.
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