ChemCases.com
Directory
ChemCases.com Home
Back
to Concept Map
Back to Silicone 16. Disease
Conditions in Some Women
Ahead to 18. Who is Responsible for
the Disease?
Chemical
Concepts
Just as a semipermeable membrane allows
passage of water, silicone membranes allow passage of
minute amounts of silicone fluid. And one physical
property of the silicones is they do not have high
tear-resistance.
| 16. Silicones' low
intermolecular forces |
explain |
poor tear resistance and
porosity. |
Who
is Responsible?
Dow
Corning will settle with claimants. But who
was responsible for the disease and injury
claimed by the individuals with implants?
There
is only one way for individuals to decide these
questions. We must examine the detailed
evidence for ourselves. We cannot be
led only by the histories of
individual pain and suffering. Most
of those histories are real, but the
evidence of disease itself does not make a link
to implants as the cause. Perhaps a large
number of women without implants would suffer the
same level of discomfort and disease. Let
us as scientists, putting aside the
emotions of the women with painful experiences
with implants, examine the
evidence. Perhaps we must seek truth
in a larger context, the context in which science
and decision making interact:
- Is science, which
has the potential to improve our lives
and alleviate suffering, absolved from
the responsibility for negative
unintended effects that may come with the
advances?
- Is our culture
itself responsible here? Our
society idealizes appearance and puts
great pressure on girls and women to live
up to this "ideal." Does
societal pressure unduly influence women
to seek implants, thus indicting our
society itself for the damage done?
- Can scientists be
trusted to answer the questions?
Some studies that might enlighten us are
funded by parties with interests in the
outcome. Can scientific authors
separate their intellectual product from
the source of their support? Can we
find comfort in the court-appointed
experts' report that silicone
implants and breast disease are not
related.
|
|
|
Heat and Chemical
Resistant Silicone Rubber
17. Bankruptcy of Dow Corning
On
July 14, 1998, the Wall Street
Journal reported that cosmetic
breast implants in the United States in 1998 would reach
the record number of about 130,000 that were done in
1990. This article followed by a week the announcements that bankrupt Dow Corning had reached a
settlement in a long-standing class action suit against
the company.
| And then on December 2, 1998, a
court-appointed scientific panel said it saw no proven links between breast
implants and disease. |
 |
In
1993, almost 9,000 individuals filed law suits against
Dow Corning claiming medical injury from their
implants. By May 1995, the company faced more than
20,000 individual suits. In addition, since early
1992, Dow Corning had faced a class action law suit
brought by more than 100,000 claimants that hoped to
compensate those injured by the implants more
quickly. Dow Corning saw the number of claimants in
this suit rise above 400,000. Dow Corning filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This means the company saw
its assets could not cover the liabilities it expected
from the suit. The bankruptcy proceedings halted
the litigation; it did not stop Dow Corning from
continuing its other business activities.
| The litigation was painfully
slow. The women who claimed injury had to
wait until mid 1998 to learn that Dow Corning and
their negotiators had agreed on a settlement that would have Dow
Corning pay more than $3.2 billion as monetary
compensation for ruptured implants and claimed
autoimmune disease symptoms. Claimants
could expect to begin receiving compensation for
their injuries by 1999 if they voted to
approve the terms of the settlement. The
settlement did not take away
the rights of individuals to sue Dow Corning, but it did specify
amounts that claimants who settled within the
suit would receive. |
 |
 |
The Wall Street Journal
reported on July 14, 1998 that a tide of
women were seeking the saline cosmetic
breast implants now in standard
use. The number of procedures in
1998 might exceed the 120,000 completed
in 1990, the highest year to date.
There was a "pent-up demand"
for the procedure, which had dropped off
to about 20,000 per year after the
silicone implant procedure was stopped in
1992 because of concerns the implant was
the source of autoimmune disease
conditions. |
The paper
noted the bankrupt Dow Corning Corporation had
agreed to the $3.2 billion settlement of
the class action suit. Dow Corning denied
culpability for the medical conditions claimed by
the class represented in the suit. The
paper added that controlled studies recently
appearing in the medical literature indicated the
silicone implants were not responsible for the
immune diseases as claimed by the class action.
It is not
simple to decide the impact of the silicone
implant. That is why ChemCases is here: to examine
the evidence and show how science and chemistry
relate to real-world situations and decisions.
And the evidence contains
science. The FDA and the Independent Review
Group of the UK have reviewed the
scientific work. Understanding their positions
demands that we have the knowledge and clear
thinking to interpret what may be complex and
contradictory. Three facts seem clear:
- Implants
rupture on occasion and leak silicone
fluid into the body.
- Some
silicone fluid leaks through the walls of
an intact implant.
- Autoimmune
disease occurs in women with implants.
Other
scientific issues remain unresolved without
further study.
- Is the
frequency of autoimmune disease in women
with implants any higher than that in
women without implants?
- Is
rupture of the implants significant?
- What
is the physical response to silicone
fluid in the body?
|
|
