More Platinum Found in Women With Implants

[Guest guest]

" For political reasons, working on breast-implant

patients has been somewhat difficult to do. "

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More Platinum Found in Women With Implants

By DIEDTRA HENDERSON

The Associated Press

Updated: 9:03 a.m. ET Aug. 26, 2004

WASHINGTON - Researchers have found high

concentrations of platinum in women who got silicone

breast implants and in the children they bore and

breast-fed afterward.

The type of platinum found in the women's blood and

urine was different than the traces of regular

platinum not uncommon in people's bodies. It was a

highly reactive platinum, used to help turn silicon

oil into the honey-like gel that lends a more natural

feel to a breast implant.

Concentrations were up to three times higher than in

women who didn't have breast implants, according to

findings by S.V.M. Maharaj, a chemist at American

University. Maharaj was scheduled present the findings

Thursday to the American Chemical Society in

Philadelphia.

Ernest Lykissa, a forensic and clinical toxicologist

who co-authored the paper, said the study's sample

size was small. But Lykissa said it fairly represented

hundreds of women with implants he's studied over the

years.

Women who had implants the longest recorded the

highest platinum concentrations. The heavy metal was

also found in bone marrow, where blood cells are made.

Distinct from platinum released by catalytic

converters in cars, platinum in implants is treated

with nitric and hydrochloric acids and becomes very

reactive, Lykissa said. The heavy metal readily binds

in the human body, especially to nerve endings,

short-circuiting communication with the brain.

" You see green, but you perceive a full moon, " he

said. " All of a sudden, your brain system is not

working right. "

Some women developed nervous tics, had faulty

perception, and impaired hearing and eyesight, he

said.

Children born to women with implants had problems with

eyesight and hearing, too, but those nervous system

disorders may have been caused by something else, he

cautioned.

The Food and Drug Administration in January stunned

plastic surgeons when, contradicting the advice of its

expert panel, it rejected Inamed's bid to reintroduce

silicone breast implants. After safety concerns rose,

the FDA banned such implants in 1992 for most

patients.

In January, the drug regulatory agency asked Inamed

for more details about what happens when silicone

seeps from the implant.

Dan Cohen, a spokesman for Santa Barbara, Calif.-based

Inamed, said the company would speak in detail about

its formal reply, submitted to the FDA earlier this

month.

But at the FDA's October 2003 advisory board meeting,

the company briefly discussed platinum dispersion and

concentration in implant patients. The company has

tracked those patients for three years.

" It was not an issue that anyone dwelled on _ either

our presentation or the panel, " Cohen said.

For its part, the FDA in 2002 surveyed scientific

literature that indicated platinum leaks from implants

into surrounding breast tissue. Researchers said they

didn't find anything suggesting women had allergic

responses to leached platinum.

H. Wooley, director of research for orthopedic

surgery at Wayne State University, said it's been

suspected for at least a decade that heavy metals used

in manufacturing might cause problems for women who

receive implants.

" I'm not sure these questions have been answered

because, in general, they haven't been asked, " Wooley

said. " For political reasons, working on

breast-implant patients has been somewhat difficult to

do. "

On the Web: FDA:

http://www.fda.gov.cdrh/breastimplants