FDA, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The current breast implant scandal in Europe has nothing to do with celebrity news. On December 23, the French Agency for the Safety of Health Products recommended that more than 30,000 French women with silicone-filled breast implants made by the medical device company Poly Implant Prothese have them removed because more than 10 percent ruptured within a year of surgery, releasing the implants’ contents into the body.
To make matters worse, these particular implants are filled with industrial-grade silicone, instead of medical-grade, which could contain unregulated and dangerous chemicals.
“They used industrial grade silicone; I cannot believe this,” said polymer chemist Judit Puskas from the University of Akron, who is developing new implant materials. “You have all kinds of additives in there that are carcinogenic.”
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