CARACAS, (Reuters) – Some 2,000 Venezuelan women are threatening to sue doctors, private clinics and distributors for faulty PIP breast implants if they do not get free replacements in one of the world’s hottest markets for plastic surgery.
The image-conscious South American country was disproportionately hit by defective breast implants sold by French manufacturer Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) and filled with dangerous, industrial grade silicone.
Local consumer protection group ANAUCO says Venezuela – famed for beauty queens with six Miss Universe titles and six Miss World crowns – imported around 30,000 pairs of PIP implants over the past decade. PIP sold 300,000 implants worldwide.
ANAUCO plans to meet in the coming days with representatives of clinics, surgeons and the company which imported the implants to negotiate removal and replacement surgeries free of charge.
“If the doctors lend their hands, the clinics their operating rooms and (the importer) new prosthetics, we will have practically everything we need for these women to get surgery without cost,” ANAUCO’s president Roberto Leon said.
“If negotiation doesn’t work, in the next 30 days or so we will be suing all the actors involved so that everyone responsible pays their share.”
He said around 2,000 women are interested in filing individual claims after an attempt to bring a class action suit stalled earlier this year after a previous legal team missed hearings. The numbers could not be independently verified.
Leon is also helping between 200 and 300 women join ongoing legal cases in France against PIP’s jailed founder Jean-Claude Mas, who faces both civil and criminal charges.
PIP went bankrupt, but Leon said the lawsuits the Venezuelan women want to join in France are also targeting German certification company TUV Rheinland for compensation. TUV Rheinland says its remit was to look into the manufacturing process, but not the content of the silicone, and that it was also misled by PIP.
Implants made by PIP, at one time the third biggest global supplier, were ordered off the market in March 2010 after an investigation found many contained gel approved for use in products from computers to cookware, but not medical devices.
French authorities then sparked a global panic late last year by saying the implants should be surgically removed due to an unusually high rupture rate.
Cheap operations
Pedro Del Medico, the director of Venezuela’s association of private medical clinics, said his group was willing to negotiate if decisions are made based on scientific information since not all health experts say the implants are dangerous.
Some governments like Britain and Brazil recommended women check their implants, but did not necessarily advise removal.
Galaxia Medica, which imported PIP products into Venezuela, said it was open to dialogue but that it was not to blame.
“We want to help contribute to a solution to this problem but from a legal perspective we don’t think we have any responsibility in what happened,” said Ruben Bretto, a spokesman for the company which sold the implants directly to doctors and to a pharmacy chain. “We also feel tricked, because we acquired a product that was well known internationally and certified.”
If there is no deal on replacing the implants, Leon said ANAUCO will sue doctors and clinics for psychological and economic damages. He cited as precedent a ruling last month by a Spanish court that fined a surgeon and a private clinic 7,500 Euros for giving women PIP implants without sufficient information.
