Fw: Silicone breast implants are coming back

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----- Original Message -----

From: " Kathi " <pureheart@...>

Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 6:05 PM

Subject: Silicone breast implants are coming back

> from Ilena.......

>

> Friday, December 20, 2002 By Milloy

>

>

>

> Silicone breast implants are coming back. That's good news for breast

> cancer survivors and other women who want implants.

>

> Blocking the way, though, are junk science-fueled, anti-implant

> activists and their personal injury lawyer-sponsors who may be poised to

> steer the outcome of an upcoming federal report on SBI safety.

>

> A new federal law enacted in October requires the National Institutes of

> Health to report to Congress on the status of breast implant research.

> Activists had perennially lobbied for the provision until it was finally

> inserted into a broader bill updating medical device regulation.

>

> SBIs are the poster child of 1990s' junk science. That decade saw

> personal lawyers generate about 170,000 plaintiffs, now in the final

> stages of extorting a $4.5 billion settlement from former SBI

> manufacturers.

>

> Yet no scientific evidence supported claims that SBIs caused disease --

> so concluded a comprehensive 1999 review of the relevant scientific data

> by multidisciplinary experts at the National Academy of Sciences'

> Institute of Medicine.

>

> But the report came too late to prevent the damage done by Food and Drug

> Administration Commissioner Kessler's 1992 ban on SBIs. Kessler's

> shoot-first-ask-questions-later action was a bureaucratic blunder that

> opened the litigation floodgates. The ban forced implant manufacturers

> to buy peace from tort lawyers rather than risk unpredictable litigation

> that might last for decades.

>

> With extensive study failing to provide evidence that SBIs cause

> disease, several manufacturers now are preparing to seek " pre-marketing

> approval " for SBIs from the FDA.

>

> Unfortunately, the new law leaves the activists and lawyers

> well-positioned to pervert the process and recreate the junk science

> circus of the 1990s.

>

> The NIH point person on SBIs is Louise Brinton, chief of the National

> Cancer Institute's environmental epidemiology branch. That description,

> though, doesn't do her justice.

>

> Brinton has an extensive history of collaborating with anti-implant

> activists and tort lawyers, according to Meroney of the American

> Enterprise Institute.

>

> A Freedom of Information Act request revealed that, while working as a

> government employee on a $4 million study of implants, Brinton was in

> contact with attorney LeRoy Hersh, a member of the Plaintiff's Steering

> Committee of top lawyers handling implant litigation. Hersh's firm won

> $1.7 million from Dow Corning in 1985 in one of the first major SBI

> cases.

>

> Brinton eventually agreed in 1995 to serve as a consultant for Hersh.

>

> Tort lawyer Sheller arranged a speaking engagement for Brinton

> before prominent SBI plaintiff attorneys in July 1995. She was a guest

> of trial lawyers at yet another meeting in Miami in November 1995.

>

> Brinton allowed tort lawyers to help her develop a 28-page research

> questionnaire sent to study subjects. The lawyers shared the draft with

> anti-implant activists who apparently weren't happy with the draft.

> Brinton was advised to be more definite about her goal.

>

> Appealing to the victimology, Brinton responded on government

> letterhead: " The study provides an opportunity for women who may be

> suffering as a result of implants to be heard. Now is your chance. "

>

> Ties to anti-implant activists also were uncovered. Brinton asked the

> head of American Silicone Implant Survivors for " any support [she] could

> provide " and advice on how to best recruit " implant survivors. "

>

> Brinton participated in an August 1995 conference call with activists

> where she described earlier SBI studies as " bad science " and said, " We

> need your help in telling women that this one is valid. "

>

> Though Brinton's own research so far has failed to link SBIs with health

> problems, she seems to have a problem communicating these results to the

> media.

>

> " Study Links Breast Implants To Lung and Brain Cancers " headlined an

> April

> 2001 New York Times report about a Brinton study, despite the fact that

> the study made no such linkage and Brinton acknowledged as much.

>

> Part of this communications breakdown may be due to Zuckerman, a

> scientific advisor on Brinton's studies and, incidentally, a key

> spokesperson for activists.

>

> Despite Brinton's acknowledgement of no demonstrable cause-and-effect

> relationship between implants and disease, Zuckerman tells congressional

> and FDA staff, and the media that Brinton's studies report women with

> SBIs " are at significant risk for debilitating and fatal disease. "

>

> I don't know for sure that Brinton is biased against SBIs. But her

> background raises serious questions about her qualifications to lead the

> NIH study. In addition to her apparent conflict-of-interest, as a mere

> epidemiologist, Brinton lacks the necessary medical and scientific

> expertise to properly conduct the study.

>

> Rather than risking a hijacking of the NIH study by anti-implant

> activists and lawyers, the NIH should immediately engage a panel of

> independent experts from a variety of relevant disciplines to produce an

> unbiased and unimpeachable report -- as the Institute of Medicine did in

> 1999.

>

> Qualified and reputable clinicians and scientists -- rather than

> irrational activists and unscrupulous lawyers -- should determine

> whether women once again will be able to choose silicone breast

> implants.

>

> Milloy is the publisher ofJunkScience.com , an adjunct scholar at

> the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense

> Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001)

>

>

>

>

>

>

> --

> " Whatever a person thinketh in his heart so is he. "

>

>