Dr. Blais report

[Guest guest]

This is part of the contents of the first letter I got from Dr. Blais in August 2000:

" I refer to your letter of July 12, 2000 and our telephone conversation of the same day. Your implants were received on August 9th and have been examined. No destructive tests were performed.

Your implants are confirmed as McGhan/Inamed saline inflatable prostheses of Style 168. Both items are defectively manufactured and incorporate a serious valve defect. The defect causes the implant to become infested with micro-organisms which grow within the saline filling solution. Such problems are widely encountered within such prostheses and can have some serious consequences to users.

Nearly all implants of this kind, that I have examined, are contaminated. More than 60% incorporate the valve defect. Products from the McGhan/Inamed Corporation, inserted after 1984 but before 1993, are eligible for compensation under several breast implant Class Actions. However, in your case, there is as yet no Class Action and the devices are not comprised in MDL 926 (Global Settlement). Given the number of defective implants and the population of injured users, it is most probable that many individual and/or class actions will be launched against Inamed and related firms. In some quarters, such devices are believed to have been misrepresented to users.

(The rest of the letter goes on to state the various reports that can be ordered, their uses and range of costs, and how to go about ordering them. )

In message 1719 of the group archives, I posted part of the contents of the next letter I received from him, In January 2001.

Here is what his letter states:

"The implants you received originated from a large defective batch of McGhan/Inamed saline inflatable prostheses of Style 168. Both items incorporate a serious valve defect. Both implants were grossly contaminated with at least one class of micro-organisms (mycobacteria). Having such implants in that condition would be approximately equivalent to bearing two large abscesses for more than a year.

The manufacturer of your implants (Inamed and precursor corporations) has been continuously embroiled in litigation surrounding faulty injurious imlplants and sharp business practices since its foundation in 1975.

A report can be prepared regarding injurious aspects of your implants. There would be no need to perform further analysis. The costs would be in the range of a "Modified ID Report".

Yours truly, P Blais, PhD, FCIC