Category Archives: News Stories & Editorials

Breast implants, heavy metals & autoimmune disorders: What should be in FDA warnings?

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Kris Pickel, AZ Family: October 18, 2019

As the Food and Drug Administration considers issuing stronger warnings for breast implants, there is a debate brewing over the content of those warnings.

The FDA is looking at several options.

• A checklist of possible risks. Doctors would be required to go over the checklist with patients who are considering breast implants.

• Listing the ingredients in breast implants.

• A box warning, also known as a black box warning. It’s the strongest warning the FDA issues signifying there is a risk of serious or even life-threatening adverse effects.

The FDA recently updated its website, acknowledging what has become known as breast implant illness.

“Some breast implant patients report a variety of systemic symptoms, such as chronic fatigue, brain fog, joint and muscle pain, which may not meet the diagnostic criteria to be categorized as a disease. Patients refer to these symptoms collectively as ‘breast implant illness (BII).’ In some cases, patients report that removal of their breast implants without replacement appears to reverse their symptoms.”

The regulatory agency is reacting to pressure from a growing movement by tens of thousands of women who believe breast implants made them sick. They describe many more symptoms than what the FDA recognized.

BII is not a new problem

Women have expressed concerns about breast implants for decades. Many women say doctors discount any connection the implants and the issues they experience, often making them feel their illness and symptoms are psychosomatic.

Nicole Daruda is one of the key figures behind the growing number of women demanding stronger warnings.

With recent attention on symptoms and illnesses potentially caused by breast implants, hundreds of women are requesting to join her Facebook group, Breast Implant Illness and Healing by Nicole, every day.

Five years after getting implants, Daruda was too sick to work.

She says at that time, there was almost no information available on a possible link between breast implants and the often-debilitating symptoms that plague some women.

“I put the words together, ‘breast implant illness,’ because I didn’t know what else to call it,” Daruda said.

n March, the FDA held public meetings on the safety of breast implants.

Women showed up from across the country, demanding stronger warnings that list the chemicals and heavy metals contained in breast implants. And they don’t just want the cautions to come from the FDA. They believe the caveats should come from breast implant manufacturers, too.

When Daruda had her implants removed, she described them as “sticky,” with silicone coming through the shell. It’s a condition known as “gel bleed.”

While the FDA acknowledges that gel bleed happens, it does not list it as a known risk or complication of breast implants.

“I lost over a decade of my life and health to breast implants,” Daruda said. “After my explant, it took me four years to recover the better part of my health. I still have permanent damage to my kidney from heavy metal.”

[…]

An estimated 35 million women have breast implants. Many of them never reported negative health effects.

Cohen Tervaert says certain factors can increase a woman’s risk of having an adverse reaction to implants. Those factors include allergies (any type from hay fever to metal allergies), an autoimmune disease, and a family history of autoimmune diseases.

Large-scale studies need to be done, according to Cohen Tervaert, but how they are done needs to change.

After his presentation to the FDA, the agency asked registries that collect data on patients and the safety and performance of breast implants to start tracking information on autoimmune diseases.

While many health professionals and implant manufacturers are quick to note that the safety of breast implants has been studied extensively, Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Center for Health Research and an expert on national health policy, says women cannot make informed decisions based on those studies.

The former senior policy advisor to the White House was vital in helping women with breast implant illness to organize and work with the FDA to secure the public meetings on breast implant safety.

“There are hundreds of studies of breast implants published in the last few decades, but almost all are so biased that they are fatally flawed,” she explained. “Almost all were paid for by the companies that make breast implants or the doctors whose salaries depend on those surgeries. The researchers asked the wrong questions and studied implants in ways that didn’t make sense. For example, they studied too few women, studied women with implants for a short period of time, and didn’t study the debilitating symptoms that women said they were experiencing. They also tended to study women with any kind of breast implants, instead of studying whether some breast implants were safer than others. And because of who was paying for the studies, even when the researchers found that implants caused medical problems, those findings were often misrepresented or completely covered up.”

When it comes to proving cause and effect between breast implants and illnesses, Cohen Tervaert believes the evidence is there.

Citing laboratory studies, he says mice prone to autoimmune diseases like lupus or arthritis developed the conditions after the implants were introduced. At the same time, mice that showed no prior sensitivity to autoimmune diseases did not develop health problems with the implants.

Another finding is that more protracted illness appears to result in more difficult recoveries.

“Proof that we have is, that if you remove the breast implant, breast implant illness can be reversible, especially if the period between implementation and explantation is very short,” Cohen Tervaert said. “You see, quite often, complete recovery of the symptoms.”

“If it’s, however, longer, than there is only partial recovery,” he continued. “And if you have developed an autoimmune disease, those autoimmune diseases can be difficult to treat until you remove the breast implants.”

A 2017 study found silicone from breast implants can migrate throughout a woman’s body — even if the implant was not ruptured — because silicone can “bleed” through the shell.

Silicone has been found not just in the tissue around the implants, but also in various organs throughout the body, including the central nervous system and brain.

Women studied had symptoms ranging from fatigue and cognitive impairment to headaches and body pain. The study found 60% to 80% of patients showed health improvements after their implants were removed.

The FDA has not decided if it will impose stricter guidelines on breast implant studies.

The agency issued warning letters to implant makers Mentor and Sientra in March, citing “low recruitment, poor data, and low follow-up rates in their required post-approval studies.”

The FDA gave the manufacturers a two-week deadline to fix the issues. Seven months later, no action has been taken against the manufacturers.

An FDA spokesperson tells CBS 5 Investigates they will not speculate on possible punitive actions.

Also in March, the FDA announced that it would hold future meetings to discusses material used in medical devices, including breast implants. They say they will focus on why some people have adverse reactions while others do not.

“The vast majority of patients implanted with medical devices have no adverse reactions,” the FDA said. “The device works and performs as expected to treat medical conditions or help patients better manage their health. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that a small number of patients may have biological responses to certain types of materials in implantable or insertable devices. For example, they develop inflammatory reactions and tissue changes, causing pain and other symptoms that may interfere with their quality of life.”

A date for the meeting has not been set.

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Massive Marketing Muscle Pushes 3D Mammograms, Despite No Evidence They Save More Lives, Investigation Shows

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Liz Szabo, USA Today: October 18th, 2019.

When Dr. Worta McCaskill-Stevens made an appointment for a mammogram last year, she expected a simple breast cancer screening – not a heavy-handed sales pitch.

A receptionist asked if she wanted a free upgrade to a “3D mammogram,” or tomosynthesis.

“She said there’s a new approach and it’s much better, and it finds all cancer,” said McCaskill-Stevens, who declined the offer.

A short time later, a technician asked again: Was the patient sure she didn’t want 3D?

Upselling customers on high-tech breast cancer screenings is just one way the 3D mammography industry aggressively promotes its product.

A KHN investigation found that manufacturers, hospitals, doctors and some patient advocates have put their marketing muscle – and millions of dollars – behind 3D mammograms. The juggernaut has left many women feeling pressured to undergo screenings, which, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, haven’t been shown to be more effective than traditional mammograms.

[…]

The American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force also say there isn’t yet enough evidence to advise women on 3D mammograms.

When the Food and Drug Administration approved the first 3D mammography system, made by Hologic, the agency required the technology to be safe and effective at finding breast cancer – not at improving survival.

“The companies do the minimal research needed to get FDA approval, and that usually means no meaningful evidence of how it helps patients,” said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research.

Valenti said Hologic presented strong evidence to the FDA. “The data was overwhelming that 3D was a superior mammogram,” Valenti said.

Describing a breast exam as 3D may conjure up images of holograms or virtual reality. In fact, tomosynthesis is closer to a mini-CT scan.

Although all mammograms use X-rays, conventional 2D screenings provide two views of each breast, one from top to bottom and one from the side. 3D screenings take pictures from multiple angles, producing dozens or hundreds of images, and take only a few seconds longer.

Yet some studies suggest that 3D mammograms are less accurate than 2D.

A 2016 study in The Lancet Oncology found that women screened with 3D mammograms had more false alarms. A randomized trial of 29,000 women published in The Lancet in June showed that 3D detected no more breast tumors than 2D mammograms did.

And, like all mammograms, the 3D version carries risks. Older 3D systems expose women to twice as much radiation as a 2D mammogram, although those levels are still considered safe, said Diana Miglioretti, a biostatistics professor at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine.

Valenti said the newest 3D systems provide about the same radiation dose as 2D.

Diagnosing more cancers doesn’t necessarily help women, Brawley said. That’s because not all breast tumors are life-threatening; some grow so slowly that women would live just as long if they ignored them – or never even knew they were there. Finding these tumors often leads women to undergo treatments they don’t need.

A 2017 study estimated 1 in 3 women with breast cancer detected by a mammogram are treated unnecessarily. It’s possible 3D mammograms make that problem worse, by finding even more small, slow-growing breast tumors than 2D, said Dr. Alex Krist, vice chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an expert panel that issues health advice. By steering women toward 3D mammograms before all the evidence is in, “we could potentially hurt women,” Krist said.

Some experts worry that patients, who tend to overestimate their risk of dying from breast cancer, are acting out of fear when they choose treatment.

“If there was ever an audience susceptible to direct-to-consumer advertising, it’s women afraid of breast cancer,” Zuckerman said.

Some proponents of 3D mammograms imply that women who opt for 2D are taking a risk.

The first question many women have about 3D mammograms is: Are they less painful?

In ads, Hologic claims its 3D device was less painful for 93% of women. But that claim comes from a company-funded study that hasn’t been formally reviewed by outside experts, Zuckerman noted. Given the limited data provided in the study, it’s possible the findings were the result of chance, said Zuckerman, who called the ads “very misleading.”

Valenti said peer review is important in studies about cancer detection or false alarms. But when it relates to “general patient satisfaction or patient preference, those are data that we get in other ways,” he said. “Plenty of [doctors] have the [3D] system now and you can get feedback from them. “

While screenings may not generate a lot of income, they can attract patients who need other, more profitable hospital procedures.

“Anytime you diagnose more tumors, you can treat more tumors,” said Amitabh Chandra, director of health policy research at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Click here to read the full article.

Some textured implants have a cancer risk. Here’s why women are told not to remove them

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Joce Sterman and Alex Brauer, WJLA: September 16, 2019.

WASHINGTON (SBG) – We’ve all heard of recalls on cars and dangerous toys, but a global recall of a device that’s surgically implanted inside your body has thousands of women on alert. The recall of Allergan’s textured BIOCELL breast implants was prompted by a government analysis that showed an increased risk of cancer. Still, women who have them are generally being told not to have them removed from their chests.

For the last two months, Raylene Hollrah’s email and phone have been blowing up, with hundreds of women contacting her non-profit, dedicated to raising awareness about the emerging cancer. It’s called Breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, also known as BIA-ALCL.

The fear women are dealing with comes following the August global recall of Allergan’s BIOCELL textured implants due to the increased the risk of lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system that Raylene now knows all too well.

When she was diagnosed with BIA-ALCL in 2013, it was a brutal double whammy. Hollrah had survived breast cancer and a mastectomy. During reconstructive surgery in 2008, she got the textured implants that eventually gave her cancer a second time, making her just the 25th documented case of BIA-ALCL in the United States at that time. Her treatment and the research that preceded it came courtesy of Dr. Mark Clemens, who is a pioneer when it comes to researching the disease at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas.

In 2017, our Sinclair station in Washington, WJLA/ABC7 was one of the first in the country to tell Raylene’s story and highlight the link between textured breast implants and lymphoma. In that report, reporter Kimberly Suiters pointed out the Food and Drug Administration was aware of 258 confirmed cases of BIA-ALCL. But she said the warnings were not making it to women who might be at risk.

When she was diagnosed with BIA-ALCL in 2013, it was a brutal double whammy. Hollrah had survived breast cancer and a mastectomy. During reconstructive surgery in 2008, she got the textured implants that eventually gave her cancer a second time, making her just the 25th documented case of BIA-ALCL in the United States at that time. Her treatment and the research that preceded it came courtesy of Dr. Mark Clemens, who is a pioneer when it comes to researching the disease at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas.

In 2017, our Sinclair station in Washington, WJLA/ABC7 was one of the first in the country to tell Raylene’s story and highlight the link between textured breast implants and lymphoma. In that report, reporter Kimberly Suiters pointed out the Food and Drug Administration was aware of 258 confirmed cases of BIA-ALCL. But she said the warnings were not making it to women who might be at risk.

Allergan voluntarily pulled the implants as well as its related tissue expanders from the market, but they remain in thousands of women, many of them breast cancer survivors. And while a letter obtained by Spotlight on America shows the company is offering free replacement implants, it won’t pay for revision surgery.

The letter explains the decision not to cover surgical fees is in line with an FDA recommendation that textured implants not be removed in patients who have shown no symptoms of BIA-ALCL. The FDA is telling doctors to stop using the implants but has told women they can keep the implants if they’re not symptomatic.

Diana Zuckerman with the National Center for Health Research says, “Some of the women are going to say I don’t care what the FDA says, I’m getting them out.”

Zuckerman explained the FDA’s advice to keep the implants balances the risks of surgery with the chances of getting this type of lymphoma, which is rare. BIA-ALCL is also highly treatable and Zuckerman says removing the implants before a woman is diagnosed with BIA-ALCL is not a 100% guarantee that she won’t develop the disease.

And there’s another big question following the recall: exactly who has these implants? Zuckerman says many women don’t know and may struggle to find out as doctors don’t have to keep these records permanently.

That’s a big deal considering it could take years for this kind of cancer to develop. For Raylene Hollrah, her BIA-ALCL diagnosis came five years after she had her implants placed. After cancer a second time, she had them removed permanently. Now Hollrah has become an advocate for women in this same situation, making sure they know about BIA-ALCL.

So far no one has firmly pinpointed why these implants are a cancer risk, although many theories exist. And while the recall right now is only for Allergan’s BIOCELL textured implants, the FDA said it, “will continue to evaluate any new information and may, as a result, take action regarding other breast implants, if warranted.”

[…]

Read the full article here.

How Safe Are Breast Implants, Really?

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Rebecca Nelson, Elemental by Medium: September 3, 2019.

When Jamee Cook got breast implants at 21, she hoped to feel more confident about her body. Instead, the implants nearly ruined her life.

Just three years after her surgery, Cook, who is now 42, started having a slew of medical problems: fatigue, fevers, sinus infections, memory problems, and trouble concentrating. She felt like she constantly had the flu and could barely muster the energy to take care of her three kids. Because of her health problems, she had to quit her job as a paramedic. Four years ago, she finally saved up enough money to get her implants removed due to the complications and discovered her symptoms subsided. “I felt like I did a turnaround,” she says. She had finally gotten her life back.

Cook is not an outlier among women with breast implants. The safety of breast implants has long been a topic of debate in the medical community. After a safety scare in the 1990s, silicone implants were banned for more than a decade before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed them back on the market in 2006. But a growing body of evidence suggests that these newer breast implants aren’t as safe as this generation of women has been led to believe. The FDA requested in July that the implant manufacturer Allergan recall their textured implants, citing a link to a rare cancer called breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma. And an online movement of thousands of women who say their implants have made them sick is calling more attention to other long-term complications.

Breast implants first came on the market in the U.S. in the 1960s. They are classified as medical devices by the FDA and an estimated 10 million women around the world have them currently. While the vast majority of those women don’t have issues, there’s increasing evidence that implants are associated with serious risks. But the available data on their safety is of poor quality, and doctors, researchers, and patients disagree about what some of the risks actually are — making it all the more difficult for women to determine them before making a decision.

The medical community has long downplayed the potential complications of implants, says Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Center for Health Research in Washington, D.C., who has studied implants. “There are many, many plastic surgeons whose entire livelihood depends on doing breast augmentation surgery. If they were to tell every patient what all the risks are, they’d have fewer patients.”

Here’s what’s known for sure: Nearly 600 cases of breast implant-related anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, have been reported to the FDA. As of July, 33 people died from it. Textured implants made by Allergan were linked to the cancer, and recalled globally that month. While the FDA says there’s generally a low risk of people with breast implants developing cancer from them, the agency said in a statement at the time that “we believe all individuals who are considering a breast implant of any type be informed of the risk.”

“Of the millions of women with breast implants, we know that complications occur in at least 1% of patients,” says FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo. “We believe, though, that all women should be aware of the potential risks and complications of breast implants, which are not lifetime devices.”

People who consider implants may be unaware that they are viewed as temporary devices to be removed or replaced at a later date. According to the FDA, the longer people have the implants, the higher their risk for complications. “The life of breast implants varies by person and can’t be predicted,” reads a FAQ about breast implants on the agency’s website. “That means everyone with breast implants will face additional surgeries — but no one can tell them when. And while a few people may keep their original implants for 20 to 30 years, that is not the common experience.”

[…]

Read the full story here.

E-cigarettes affect a person’s blood vessels after just one use, study finds

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Caitlin O’Kane, CBS News: August 22, 2019.

Vaping, even temporarily, can affect the blood vessels in healthy people — even if the vape pod does not contain nicotine, according to a new study published in the journal Radiology this week.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine studied 31 volunteers, all of whom were healthy, non-smoking adults with an average age of about 24 years old.

The participants were monitored as they each took 16 three-second inhalations from a disposable e-cigarette. The researchers used an ePuffer with flavored e-cigarette liquid but no nicotine in it. A research coordinator made sure sure the participants did not cough or swallow the vapor.

The researchers then conducted MRI scans on the participants and found a reduction in blood flow in the femoral artery in their legs. This change occurred after just one vaping experience.The findings suggest vaping impaired function of the endothelium, or inner lining of blood vessels, a press release on the study explained.

“These products are advertised as not harmful, and many e-cigarette users are convinced that they are just inhaling water vapor,” Alessandra Caporale, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “But the solvents, flavorings and additives in the liquid base, after vaporization, expose users to multiple insults to the respiratory tract and blood vessels.”

[…]

“Lung damage is what we’re most focused on right now, but there’s so much more going on,” Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, recently told CBS News. “There are chemicals in Juul and e-cigs and we’re not exactly sure what the impact is going to be because we haven’t seen it before.”

A study published in the journal Pediatrics last year found a number of different toxic chemicals in e-cigarettes, including one linked to several types of cancer. Some of the chemicals turned up even when teens used non-nicotine products like fruit-flavored vapes.

Read the original story here.

How to Read a Drug Label

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Michelle Llamas, DrugWatch: July 31, 2019 Update.

Consumers should always read drug labels to make sure they are taking a medication correctly and safely as well as to learn about possible side effects. Unfortunately, these labels can be challenging for the average person to digest.

If you struggle to make sense of the information on your drug labels, you are not alone.

“Several studies have shown that patients often have difficulty in reading and understanding medication labels, which may lead to medication errors such as taking the wrong medication or the wrong dose,” said Mireille Hobeika, who received her doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Understanding drug labels is even more important for people with chronic illnesses and seniors. They have the greatest risk of medication errors or interactions because they tend to take multiple medications.

There are two kinds of drug labels: over-the counter drug labels — also called Drug Facts — and prescription drug labels, which include many pages of safety information, such as pharmacy information sheets, medication guides and prescribing information.

Before you start taking a new medication, review the drug label with your doctor and pharmacist and let them know of any health conditions you have and any medications and supplements you take.[…] Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, recommends patients consider the following questions and tips when reading clinical trial data on drug labels.

  • Were patients in the study like you in terms of age, sex and race? Look for at least 30 patients like you in the study. It might not provide you the most relevant data if people in the study aren’t similar enough to you.
  • Were patients in the study like you in terms of medical diagnosis? For example, if it’s a cancer drug, did the study involve people with your type of cancer? The same goes for drugs that treat other diseases. Data might be less relevant to you if you are not represented by patients in the study.
  • Is the drug tested in people who failed at other treatments? The FDA approves some higher risk drugs for people with no other treatment options.

Medication Guides

If a drug has an FDA-approved medication guide, pharmacists are supposed to give it to patients with their prescription, but this doesn’t always happen. And not all drugs have them.

The FDA requires manufacturers to write medication guides in easy-to-understand language for patients. You can find these medication guides on the drug manufacturer’s website or on DailyMed.

The blood thinner Coumadin, also known under the generic name warfarin, has a medication guide. Similar to the Drug Facts on an OTC label, the medication guide tells patients the most important prescription drug information in simple language.

INFORMATION IN A MEDICATION GUIDE

  1. What is the most important information I should know about the drug? The most serious risks, side effects and symptoms you should look for are detailed here.
  2. What is the drug? Here you can find the condition or symptoms the drug treats.
  3. Who should not take the drug? This section describes diseases or health conditions that may worsen with use of the drug. It also addresses people who may be allergic to the drug.
  4. Before taking the drug. If you have diseases or health conditions listed in this section, talk to your doctor before taking the medication.
  5. How should I take the drug? This section explains the special instructions on how to take the drug. It reminds people to take the drug only as directed by their doctor.
  6. What are the possible side effects of the drug? This section includes side effects information and brief explanations about each side effect. Sometimes it includes information on tests your provider may run or symptoms to watch for.
  7. How should I store the drug? Information on how to store the drug is included here. Some drugs are sensitive to heat or cold and some may need refrigeration.
  8. What are the ingredients in the drug? Check this section for the active and inactive ingredients. Tell your provider if you are allergic to any ingredients in the drug.

Is Side Effect Information Always Accurate?

Side effect information on drug labels usually comes from clinical trial data collected before a manufacturer sells the drug. Sometimes the label will get an update based on side effect reports the FDA receives after the drug has been on the market. This information is called postmarketing data.

“If side effects are known, they should always be included on the label, but some side effects aren’t known until years after a product goes on the market,” Zuckerman said.

Drug manufactures can face lawsuits if they know about a side effect but fail to warn consumers and doctors.

“Back when I took Levaquin in 2006, there were no black box warnings on fluoroquinolones,” said Brummert, who suffered multiple ruptured tendons after taking the antibiotic. “The first warning came in 2008 for tendon ruptures, and that black box only stated that people over 60 were at risk. Adverse reactions I have suffered that are still not included in the warnings are autonomic and central nervous system dysfunction and neurodegenerative disorders.”

Brummert said she discovered the FDA had admitted to these side effects in a hidden document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

What Should You Do If You Don’t Understand a Label?

If you have tried reading a drug label and don’t understand it, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your health care provider and pharmacist are there to assist you.

“Before leaving the doctors’ office, patients should make sure they are well informed about the name of the drug and why they are taking it, the medical conditions this drug treats, how many times per day should they take it, how long will it take this drug to work, when should they stop taking it, are there any side effects that they should know about and any situations where they should not be taking the drug,” Hobeika said.

If you leave your health care provider’s office without the information you need to take your medicine safely and effectively, the pharmacy from where you pick up your medication can help. Your pharmacist can answer questions about OTC and prescription medications.Hobeika recommends having all prescriptions filled at the same pharmacy, so the pharmacist has a record of them. She also suggests doing the following before you leave the pharmacy:

  • Check the label to make sure your name is on it. If it isn’t, talk to the pharmacist.
  • Check the label to make sure you can read and understand the name of the medicine, directions and colored warning stickers on the package. If the letters are too small to read, ask your pharmacist to print it in a larger type.
  • Are the directions on the package the same as those you and your provider discussed? If not, tell the pharmacist.
  • Ask if there are special instructions on how to store the medicine. Should it be kept in the refrigerator or a dry place?
  • Ask if there is anything you shouldn’t eat or drink while taking the medicine.
  • Ask if it’s safe to take the drug with other prescriptions or OTC medicines you’re taking.

Read the full article here.

Why Everyone Is Talking About Breast Implant Safety Right Now

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Michelle Stacey, Allure: July 29, 2019.

Candyce Kirbyson wanted a bit more. At 105 pounds, she had A-cup breasts. So at 32, the Seattle-area mom decided to get implants. But she got a lot more. A laundry list of ailments, in fact. Hives and muscle weakness. Numbness and tingling in her arms and legs. Insomnia and chronic sinusitis. At various points in Kirbyson’s 14-year slog through doctor’s offices, MRIs, and emergency-room visits, it was suggested (among many other potential diagnoses) that she had “mold toxicity,” sometimes known as “sick-building syndrome.”

Kirbyson wondered if it had to do with her new office. “I was on and off antibiotics that would work for a while, and then my hives and inflammation would come back,” she says. “I sometimes felt like I was getting early Alzheimer’s, like my brain wasn’t working. I tried integrative medicine, functional medicine, ENTs. Nobody could figure out what was going on, and doctors said it was all in my head. I felt like I was dying.”

Never once did Kirbyson suspect the implants as the source of her sickness since she didn’t have pain in her breasts and not one doctor had ever raised the possibility.

Then late last year, she read an article that led her to a Facebook group that described similar symptoms. “I started crying my eyes out, because everything I was reading was what had happened to me,” she says. Kirbyson consulted a local plastic surgeon who was mentioned in the group and had her implants removed in January.

Slowly, her symptoms are diminishing. “My energy is back, my brain fog is lifting, the tingling and hives are happening less,” she says. “I’m 500 percent sure that my whole system broke after I got implants.”

An alarming conclusion, particularly since breast augmentation is the most popular plastic surgery. There were almost 314,000 procedures in the U.S. in 2018, up 4 percent from the previous year. In a 2011 report, the Food and Drug Administration estimated that between 5 and 10 million women worldwide have breast implants. Admittedly, fears about potential dangers have surrounded implants since their inception in 1961. But past concerns were that they would rupture and leak.

The new fear factor: Could simply letting these things exist in your body be ruinous? Claims like Kirbyson’s — that breast implants have triggered inexplicable chronic illness — are growing, and new reports show a direct line from implants to a rare lymphoma. In March, the FDA held a public advisory committee meeting on breast implants to discuss these issues. Sides were taken, and tensions ran high.

One of the speakers, Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Center for Health Research, who has been a voice in the debate for decades, says: “I was struck by how often the answer to a question was ‘We don’t know.’ We don’t know which implants are better or worse, or how often people get sick. Women deserve to know what their odds are of getting sick because of their breast implants, and we can’t answer that question.”

Doctors and the FDA concede that there is still much to learn, says Grant Stevens, the president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) and a clinical professor of plastic surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. But after 35 years of performing breast implants on more than 10,000 patients, he’s convinced that the vast majority have few problems with the devices.

Women suffering from what they call breast implant illness (BII) beg to differ. Though not a disease, BII has recently gained credibility. So much so that the FDA has incorporated the patient-coined term into its website among cautions about implants, citing “systemic symptoms” as one potential risk, although “what causes them are poorly understood.”

In the run-up to its March meeting, the FDA listed examples of the top reported BII markers: fatigue, brain fog, rash, joint pain, and memory loss (amid an exhaustive 87-item list of other possible issues, including “ear ringing” and “throat-clearing”).

“BII is not a diagnosis,” says Stevens. “It’s a collection of symptoms — about 22 of which I have myself at any given time. [But] I’ve looked into the eyes of women who say they’re going through it, and I know they’re not making it up. They’ve seen a bunch of doctors; they’re frustrated; they’re scared.”

There have been no formal studies on BII to mollify those fears. (The first of its kind is starting now, funded by the Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation, according to Stevens.) It’s difficult to track symptoms that are so subjective and wide-ranging, and Laurie A. Casas, the former president of ASAPS’s Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation and a clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine, says many manufacturers have “had trouble getting” follow-up reports on patients who use their implants — an FDA requirement.

In March, the agency issued warning letters to two companies, Mentor and Sientra, for falling far short. In a statement to Allure, Mentor admits they “continue to encounter challenges,” due to the low percentage of U.S. patients who use their textured implants. Sientra told us that many of its patients have family and work obligations that preclude them from follow-ups, but says it’s committed to helping bridge that gap by compensating patients and doctors.

“I think some companies did a lousy job,” says New Jersey–based plastic surgeon Caroline Glicksman. “You tend not to hear from patients who are doing fine. These manufacturers should incentivize women who take time and spend money to show up for follow-ups every year.” One company that did that, Ideal, was able to track nearly 95 percent of its patients for five years by offering a balloon payment at the end of the study, potentially granting each woman $5,000 to $8,000.

The recent establishment of several breast implant “registries” could also help to assess long-term safety. “Ideally, we want to track every implant in every patient over the lifetime of the implant,” says Casas. “These studies should have a control group of women of the same age that do not have implants. That way we can understand the incidence of these symptoms in women of the same age who have and do not have implants.”

That raises the question: Could it be that breast implants aren’t for everyone? Many doctors are intrigued by the potential of using genetic tests to determine whether someone might have inflammatory or allergic “markers” that would indicate they’re a bad fit for the devices, says Casas. That’s a possibility the FDA is now entertaining, saying in a statement: “A growing body of evidence suggests that a small number of patients may have biological responses to certain types of materials in implantable or insertable devices. They develop inflammatory reactions and tissue changes, causing pain and other symptoms that may interfere with their quality of life.”

That small number of patients is radicalized. The Breast Implant Illness and Healing Facebook group, for one, has grown from a few hundred members to more than 70,000 in the past three years. Its message — your breast implants are making you sick — is powerful. But that power can be a double-edged sword, says Nashville-based plastic surgeon Melinda Haws. “Many women have turned to social media for support and information when their doctors were unsympathetic,” she says. “Unfortunately, the support groups, in many cases, have become more trusted than the plastic surgeons. If I’ve got a pain in my knee, I can search the Internet for the cause. But I still have to see an orthopedic surgeon.”

BII’s symptoms can make many patients feel helpless and unnecessarily guilty, since it’s an elective surgery. “Many women have described to me the negative impacts on their family and their jobs that they believe have come from this procedure,” says Haws, adding that such worries can compound and worsen insomnia and anxiety.

For patients like Kirbyson, advice from the BII group was transformational. However, for Celeste Greene*, it presented a red herring. Greene got her first implants at age 21. They were saline and lasted six good years, until they began to feel hard and she traded them for silicone implants. She soon developed some symptoms similar to Kirbyson’s, went through full-panel tests with no conclusive diagnosis, and three years later, found solace and enlightenment in the same Facebook group.

Within about nine months of finding the group, she had her implants removed. As she recovered, Greene felt markedly better. Fast-forward a few months, and all of her symptoms returned. It took another year, a divorce, and finding out that her estrogen was abnormally low (“My endocrinologist said it was like that of a 60-year-old woman!”) for Greene, now 36, to get a complete picture. She is now positive that job stress, studying for board exams to keep that job, an abusive marriage, and hormone irregularities were collectively the “perfect storm” that caused her malaise. “It was an expensive lesson.”

[…]

See the original story here.

Allergan Recalls Textured Breast Implants Globally Due to Cancer Links

In the News, Medical Treatments with Cancer Risks, News Stories & Editorials, We're In the News

Sasha Chavkin, IJIC: July 24, 2019.

Allergan will recall its Biocell textured breast implants worldwide after United States health authorities requested that it remove them from the market due to their association with a rare cancer of the immune system.

The announcement, which reflects the most sweeping recognition to date of the serious health risks associated with breast implants, comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained new data showing that Allergan implants were linked to most known cases of the cancer, breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL).

“Once the evidence indicated that a specific manufacturer’s product appeared to be directly linked to significant patient harm, including death, the FDA took action to alert the firm to new evidence indicating a recall is warranted to protect women’s health,” said FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy, in a statement issued by the agency.

The company said the recalled implants, both saline and silicone, would no longer be distributed or sold in any market where they are currently available.

[…]

President of the National Center for Health Research Diana Zuckerman, who has called for stricter oversight of breast implants, said Allergan’s recall was a step in the right direction but did not eliminate the risks of BIA-ALCL.

“When women decide to get breast implants for reconstruction after mastectomy or for breast augmentation, they should not be putting their lives at risk for lymphoma,” Zuckerman said.

“This recall will reduce that risk but it won’t eliminate it, because the FDA has stated that not all women with BIA-ALCL had these specific types of implants.”

In its press conference, the FDA said that it was considering additional measures to protect patient safety.

The agency said it would soon announce updated labeling standards for breast implants, and that these might include a black box safety warning, which is reserved for products that pose the most serious health risks.

The FDA also said it might require a patient checklist, a document that briefly states the key health risks from breast implants which patients would sign before undergoing surgery. The agency is not recommending that women who currently have Allergan Biocell implants get their implants removed, unless they experience signs or symptoms of BIA-ALCL.

Read the full story here.

Allergan Recalls Textured Breast Implants Linked to Rare Cancer

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Laurie McGinley, Washington Post: July 24, 2019.

Allergan announced a worldwide recall of textured breast implants Wednesday after the Food and Drug Administration found a sharp increase in a rare cancer and deaths linked to the products and asked the company to pull them off the U.S. market.

The Dublin-based company said it is recalling Biocell textured breast implants and tissue expanders from all markets in which they are sold. The devices had already been banned or recalled in several countries.

The FDA said the new data shows that 573 cases worldwide have linked the rare cancer to the implants since the agency began tracking the issue in 2011. The vast majority of those cases involve Allergan products. Thirty-three women have died of what’s known as breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. Of those fatalities, authorities identified the implant manufacturer in 13 cases — and it was Allergan in all but one.

In February, the last time the FDA had updated its numbers on implant-associated illness, it reported 457 cases and nine deaths worldwide.

The agency said Wednesday that the latest data indicates the risk of such disease is six times greater with Allergan Biocell textured implants than with other types of textured implants sold in the United States.

The FDA’s new stance against the Biocell product is a reversal of its posture a few months ago, when it said there was insufficient evidence to try to remove the devices from the market.

Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said on a news call the agency changed its position partly after seeing the sharp increase in reported deaths.

Allergan pulled the products off the European market last year. Canada banned them in May after finding an increased risk of cancer.

[…]

Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, a nonprofit organization, welcomed the FDA’s decision to press Allergan to recall the implants. “We are very glad they have done it,” she said. “I think they could have done it months ago and I hope a lot of women have not been getting these implants in the meantime.”

The FDA said that in most cases, the rare lymphoma linked to the implants is found in scar tissue and fluid near the devices, but that sometimes it can spread throughout the body. The condition can be life-threatening if it isn’t diagnosed and treated promptly, the agency said. Most patients are treated successfully by surgery to remove the implant and scar tissue but some may require chemotherapy or radiation.

Scientists are not sure why certain textured implants might be linked to the rare cancer. “We don’t know what it is that might increase the risk,” said Binita Ashar, director of the FDA’s office of surgical and infection control devices.

The agency said its data on the rising incidence of illnesses and deaths related to the implants came from medical device reports and searches of medical literature.

See the full article here.

Allergan Recalls Textured Breast Implant Tied to Rare Cancer

In the News, Medical Treatments with Cancer Risks, News Stories & Editorials, We're In the News

Matthew Perrone, AP for ABC Action News; July 24, 2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — Breast implant maker Allergan Inc. issued a worldwide recall Wednesday for textured models because of a link to a rare form of cancer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it called for the removal after new information showed Allergan’s Biocell breast implants with a textured surface account for a disproportionate share of rare lymphoma cases. The move follows similar action in France, Australia and Canada.

The FDA is not recommending women with the implants have them removed if they are not experiencing problems.

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 Photo by: Matt McGlashen 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Breast implant maker Allergan Inc. issued a worldwide recall Wednesday for textured models because of a link to a rare form of cancer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it called for the removal after new information showed Allergan’s Biocell breast implants with a textured surface account for a disproportionate share of rare lymphoma cases. The move follows similar action in France, Australia and Canada.

The FDA is not recommending women with the implants have them removed if they are not experiencing problems.

[…]

The FDA said the latest figures show more than 80 percent of the 570 confirmed cases of the lymphoma worldwide have been linked to Allergan implants. The updated figures reflect 116 new cases of the cancer since the FDA last released figures earlier this year.

The new numbers still reflect a rare disease considering an estimated 10 million women globally have breast implants.

There is no firm agreement on the exact frequency of the disease, known as breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Published estimates ranging from 1 in 3,000 patients to 1 in 30,000 patients.

Diana Zuckerman, a researcher who has studied breast implant safety, called the removal of the devices inevitable.

“Either the company would voluntarily decide to withdraw them from the market to protect from lawsuits, or the FDA would persuade Allergan to do so,” Zuckerman said in an email.

Read the full story here.