Breast Implant Helpline, Breast Implant Lawyers Utah

Dow Silicone Breast Implant Overview

Between 5 million and 10 million women have breast implants worldwide. A new Silicone breast Implant has been approved. With today's  ( March 9, 2012 ) approval, there are now three FDA-approved silicone gel-filled breast implants in the U.S. manufactured by Allergan, Mentor and Sientra.Sientra Inc.'s silicone gel-filled breast implant has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for breast reconstruction or augmentation in women aged 22 or older, the agency said Friday in a news release.

Similar products made by two other manufacturers — Allergan and Mentor — were approved previously by the FDA.

Breast reconstruction includes replacing tissue removed due to cancer or injury, while augmentation generally is used to increase breast size.

Women are feeling the pain suffering and emotional distress and the side effects of silicone breast implants. We speak to N.Y and NYC   Breast Implant Victims who say :

• When you’ve been victimized and sacrificed for the greed of a huge corporation;
• When you’ve just found out that women with breast implants are 3 times more likely to die from brain cancer and other cancers and 2-3 times more likely to commit suicide
•  When your dear husband or boyfriend you wanted to have big sexy breasts for can’t touch them anymore because they hurt so bad, and it’s ruining your relationship
• When you are sick and tired and in pain all the time and you are losing your mind and memory;
•  When your glands are swollen and you wake up drenched in sweat each night;
• When the doctors have no cure for what ails you
• When your job is based on large breasts and  you have lost it due to fatigue and illness
•  When your children you breast fed are suffering from Silicone Poisoning

Breast Implant Rupture Diagnosis thru Mammography

Problems with breast implants have been well publicized in recent years as thousands of women have come forward to testify of various complications. Many women have had problems with silicon breast implants rupturing. Sometimes such ruptures are obvious due to a change in shape or extreme pain, but other times ruptures are barely noticeable. One method that has been widely used to determine if an implant has actually burst is mammography, a procedure that essentially takes an X-ray of the breast. Physicians believe that 90 percent of breast implant failure can be detected with mammography. However, many times a mammogram is either inconclusive, or can lead to a wrong diagnosis. Many women are being told that their implants are intact when they aren't, and others are being told their implants have ruptured when they haven't.

What is a breast Implant?

Breast implants are medical devices that are implanted under the breast tissue or under the chest muscle to increase breast size (augmentation) or to rebuild breast tissue after mastectomy or other damage to the breast (reconstruction). They are also used in revision surgeries, which correct or improve the result of an original surgery.

There are two types of breast implants approved for sale in the United States: saline-filled and silicone gel-filled. Both types have a silicone outer shell. They vary in size, shell thickness, and shape (contour).

Dangers of Silicone Breast Implants

Silicone and its contaminants which bleed through its surrounding implant envelope into neighboring tissue have the potential for significant toxicity in the implant recipient. Silicone elicits antibody responses and immunological abnormalities.

The National Research Center for Women and Families, a USA-based, non-profit research and information centre that provides information about breast implants to about 1,000 women annually, reports that all breast implants carry a risk of the following: tightening or hardening of the scar tissue around the implant (which can be painful and disfiguring); rupture of the shell holding the silicone; leaking of silicone following rupture (requiring an MRI to detect accurately and surgery to remove it); autoimmune symptoms in women whose implants have leaked; risks related to removal (this “explanting” is a rare skill even in the USA, the breast implant capital of the world); negative effects on breastfeeding; reduced accuracy of mammograms (serious especially for women who have had cancer); breaking of implants due to pressure during mammography; and the need for subsequent surgery for many of these problems. Breast Implants have been associated with auto immune diseases

An autoimmune disorder may result in:

• The destruction of one or more types of body tissue
• Abnormal growth of an organ
• Changes in organ function

An autoimmune disorder may affect one or more organ or tissue types. Organs and tissues commonly affected by autoimmune disorders include:

• Blood vessels
• Connective tissues
• Endocrine glands such as the thyroid or pancreas
• Joints
• Muscles
• Red blood cells
• Skin

Examples of autoimmune  disorders include:

• Addison's disease
• Celiac disease – sprue (gluten-sensitive enteropathy)
• Dermatomyositis
• Graves disease
• Hashimoto's thyroiditis
• Multiple sclerosis
• Myasthenia gravis
• Pernicious anemia
• Reactive arthritis
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sjogren syndrome
• Systemic lupus erythematosus
• Type I diabetes

Symptoms

• Fatigue
• Fever
• General ill-feeling (malaise)

Tests that may be done to diagnose an autoimmune disorder may include:

• Antinuclear antibody tests
• Autoantibody tests
• CBC
• C-reactive protein (CRP)
• Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)

Silicone is used for Many things

Silicone is used for menstrual cups, enclosures for electrical equipment, and also fire stops used in the process of fire retardation.

Diseases  and Complications

Are you suffering from symptoms of or have been diagnosed with:

• Lupus (SLE),
• Polyarthritis,
• Scleroderma,
• butterfly rash patterns
• GCTS (General Connective Tissue Symptoms)
• severely dry eyes,
• polyarthritis,
• immune mediated skin rashes,
• peripheral neuropathy,
• myalgia,
• positive ANA
• dry eyes,
• joint pain and swelling,
• body and face rashes,
• myalgias
• chronic fatigue,
• numbness and tingling in extremities
• photosensitivity

If you answered yes to any of these questions and you were inserted with silicone or saline breast implants before June 1, 1993, you may be eligible to participate in the Dow Corning (SF-DCT) and/or MDL 926 Class Action settlements.Call the breast implant Helpline and speak to a Breast Implant lawyer.

Your Breast Implant Lawyer will need to Know

• Approximate date of initial implantation and at what facility?
• Who was the doctor that performed the procedure?
• Brand of Implant(s)?
• Do you have a copy of your medical records from your breast implant surgery?
• Have you had your implants removed?
• Do you have proof of Manufacturer ?
• Do you have medical disease reports from a physician ?
• Are/were your implants ruptured?
• Have you registered with either of the Claims Office? Which one(s)?
• Have you filed a Medical/Disease Claim? SLE, dry eyes, joint pain and swelling, body and face rashes, myalgias, chronic fatigue, numbness and tingling in extremities, photosensitivity,?
• Are you currently being treated by a doctor or a specialist?
• Have you received money from either Breast Implant Litigation Settlement Fund?

Your breast Implant Claims Fall into two basic categories

Settlement Facility Dow Corning Trust: Class 5 and 7 Claims

The Settlement Facility for the Dow Corning Trust (SF-DCT) is current in processing class 5 claims for disease and explant benefits.  Reviews of Class 7 disease claims, however, are not all completed yet.  Class 7 claims found to be deficient will have one year from the date of their notification letters to try to cure the deficiencies.  Therefore, the SF-DCT is not expecting to be able to make payments to class 7 approved claims for another 1-2 years.

Dow Corning trust Payments

Any approved disease in Disease Option 1 with a Severity or Disability Level of A, B, C, or D  To be eligible for this, you must have proof that you have or had one or more Dow Corning breast implants and have not had a Bristol, Baxter or 3M silicone gel breast implant **
Severity / Disability Level    Base Payment    Premium Payment    Total Payment
Level A    $50,000    $10,000    $60,000
Level B    $20,000    $4000    $24,000
Level C    $10,000    $2000    $12,000
** If you have acceptable proof that you have or had a Bristol, Baxter, or 3M silicone gel breast implant, the Total Payment Amount will be reduced by 50%.

MDL-926 Claims

What you need to know about your MDL-926  Breast implant Claim

Call the Breast Implant Helpline NYC, New York

• If you have received a Status letter from the Claims Administrator's Office, indicating that your Disease Claim had one or more Deficiencies
• If you are a registered claimant in the MDL 926 Revised Settlement Program, and have:
• Already filed a Disease Claim prior to the 12/15/2010 deadline and received a deficiency notice
• Submitted additional supporting medical records prior to 12/15/2010 and received a denial in 2011

There are many different types of disease that fall under the guidelines of the Class Action. Different levels of compensation are available for specific disease and diagnoses’. Some of them are: Lupus (SLE), autoimmune disease, dry eyes, dry mouth; polyarthritis, skin rashes, face rashes, numbness and tingling in hands and toes (neuropathy), chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, myalgia, or abnormal blood work.

Manufacturers

In 1991, Dow Corning manufactured an sold more that 4,500 silicone-based products to 45,000 customers worldwide, and was considered a leader in the industry. About 1% of total sales in 1991 came from silicone breast implant product.

Other Manufacturers of Silicone Breast Implants include:

• Dow Corning
• Heyer Schulte
• American Hospital Supply
• Natural Y
• Surgitek
• Replicon
• Mentor
• Cui
• Bioplasty
• Brystol Meyer Squibb
• Medical Engineering
• McGhan Medical
• 3M
• McGhan
• Dow Corning
• Baxter Health Care

In the U.S the implants sold by Allergan Inc. and Johnson & Johnson's unit Mentor were huge.   Allergan’s implant business totaled about $300 million in sales for 2010.

The current claims offices offering settlements include: Dow Corning Corporation, Baxter Health Care, Bristol Meyer Squibb, 3M Corporation, McGhan, Mentor, CUI, and Bioplasty.

FDA and Silicone  Breast implants

Due to the dangers of silicone breast implants, the FDA issued a  strict warning and hold on all silicone breast implants in the early 90's. . Frequent examinations look for any evidence of dangers of silicone breast implants: checking for leaks or hardening implant shells. Evidence supplied by various groups regarding dangers of silicone breast implants has been contradictory in the past, due partly to the nature of the research into the dangers of silicone breast implants; initially, companies were not required by the FDA to present any research detailing the possible dangers of silicone breast implants prior to marketing their product.

The FDA Issued a warning that Breast implants linked to rare cancer

Federal health officials issued a warning that breast implants may increase the risk of developing a very rare form of lymphoma.

The Food and Drug Administration  has previously announced it had detected a possible association between saline and silicone gel-filled breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), a cancer of the immune system."Although very rare, the FDA believes women with breast implants may have a small increased risk of developing ALCL," said William Maisel, the FDA's chief scientist and deputy director of science in the agency's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

For more information regarding your Breast implant Claim Contact the Breast Implant Helpine Utah today. YOu miust be registered with Dow Corning Trust to be eligible.