Breast implants are back in the news, and on prime time. Whether they are treated like miracle workers on “Extreme Makeover,” as a risk for teens on “Everwood,” or the comeback kid in TV news and newspapers, it’s hard to avoid hearing about them.

There’s a reason for all this attention. On Oct. 15, advisors to the Food and Drug Administration will decide whether or not they believe that silicone gel breast implants are safe enough to have the FDA seal of approval. If they say yes, there is a good chance that silicone gel breast implants will be chosen instead of saline breast implants by more than 200,000 women and teenagers next year. If not, silicone gel implants will continue to be available on a restricted basis, mostly to women who had their breasts removed because of cancer.

The FDA has only required the implant company to do safety research on women with implants for two years. Unfortunately, gel implants tend to break as they get older. Two or even three or four years is not long enough to know what happens when silicone gel implants get older, break and leak. Cancer and many other diseases take years to develop, so long-term research is essential.

The spin machines have already started. Plastic surgeons and implant manufacturers (and the pundits they persuade) say that there is “no scientific evidence” that breast implants cause disease.

But when scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the FDA conducted several studies on women who had implants for at least 7 years, their results were surprisingly different. These independent scientists reported a link between breast implants and serious and potentially fatal diseases, including brain cancer, lung cancer, fibromyalgia and other autoimmune diseases.

Meanwhile, our government has successfully sued several breast implant manufacturers for tens of millions of dollars. The millions are intended to repay Medicare costs for women who became very sick or disabled from their breast implants.

Will the FDA consider long-term safety questions or decide that the company can experiment on women while we wait for research to be completed? Stay tuned.

Diana Zuckerman is president of the National Center for Policy Research for Women & Families.

Readers may write to her at: National Center for Policy Research for Women & Families, 1901 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 901, Washington, D.C. 20006, or via e-mail at dzcenter4policy.org; Web site: www.center4policy.org.

This essay is available to Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service subscribers. Knight Ridder/Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Knight Ridder/Tribune or its editors.

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(c) 2003, National Center for Policy Research for Women & Families

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

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