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Award Winning Actress/Activist Sally Kirkland Sends Out a Red Alert to Women Around the World
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Added: 07/19/2005
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Award Winning Actress/Activist Sally Kirkland Sends Out a Red Alert to Women Around the World
Los Angeles, CA July 19, 2005 -- While the FDA is deciding whether or not to give the gold standard of "safety" to silicone breast implants, award winning actress and health activist, Sally Kirkland has a bold message to women.
"Breast implants pose a serious threat that can destroy your health and very possibly harm your offspring."
Almost no testing has been done on the children of women with silicone breast implants. Hundreds of women whose babies were born after having silicone breast implants have reported that their children have had many of the same difficult to diagnose allergies and autoimmune problems that they themselves experience. These sick mothers with sick babies feel extremely guilty that their personal 'choice' has harmed their children.
A seemingly disproportionate number of miscarriages after implantation show up in support groups around the world, but this too, is basically unstudied.
After these devices have been marketed for over 40 years, the FDA's own handbook on breast implants admits, "In other words, it is not known what effect breast implants may have on an unborn baby (fetus) and the nursing infant."
While holding her faith that the FDA will again deny giving "safety" approval to Inamed and Mentor's silicone gel implants, Kirkland believes that sanity can prevail. She wants to share her cautionary stance with any woman considering making the "choice" of breast implants. "The studies they are relying on are ridiculously short, and the conditions recommended are unenforceable and very expensive."
Kirkland who has had devastating experiences with implants, both silicone gel and saline has connected with thousands of women around the world who have been similarly harmed.
Ilena Rosenthal, Director of the Humantics Foundation, Breast Implant Awareness.org, heads an international support group. She reminds the FDA that their dominion is over "safety" -- not "choice." "'Choice'" became a public relations buzzword to confuse the facts on the FDA's role in deciding the safety of products. Already, over a quarter of a million women have contacted the FDA with implant related illnesses and injuries."
Scleroderma, a extremely painful and debilitating disease has been reported in disproportionate numbers, both in the women and their offspring. The online breast implant community is mourning the premature deaths of several women, just recently a beloved Canadian woman from scleroderma. "Suicide is not uncommon in these women suffering from constant pain and no solutions to their medical problems," added Rosenthal.
Recent studies done on platinum levels in implanted women and their children are alarming:
The Center for Disease Control conducted a study in the US on platinum levels in the general population.
No one tested over 0.04 ppb (parts per billion per liter of urine).
Yet some offspring of women with breast implants showed levels in the 100-300 ppb range.
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 and readily binds in the human body, especially to nerve endings, short-circuiting communication with the brain.
Kirkland, who has worked hard to regain her health after she publicly shared her implant removal in August, 1998, reminds women that recent FDA studies have also linked broken implants and fibromyalgia. Last month Kirkland was interviewed on KABC's "One on One" by veteran journalist, Adrienne Alpert, discussing her many concerns and appealing to the FDA over many issues that are never addressed in "studies."
"Our online health hotline receives emails every week from women who have leaking silicone breast implants that they can't afford to have removed" explains Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families. "The FDA needs to consider that when something goes wrong with a breast implant, health insurance doesn't cover the cost of removal and many women have no where to turn."
Dr. Edward Melmed, a Dallas plastic surgeon who did thousands of breast implants and now performs surgery to remove them, said, over the years, he has seen frequent ruptures, a hardening of the implants and "illnesses in a small but definite group of women that certainly constitute a pattern." He said this has included some autoimmune diseases, memory loss, depression, joint pain, skin rashes, dry eyes, hair loss and other problems.
Kathy Keithley-Johnston, R.N. - Executive Director of Toxic Discovery, a non-profit Consumer Advocacy Agency is more than concerned over the thousand's of calls they receive Annually. "Women call us with their concerns of not only implant ruptures but their endless complaints of illness. The majority of these women were healthy individuals before receiving breast implants but now are suffering from a myriad of complaints and endless medical problems. No long term studies have been conducted concerning what potential illness's may occur after long term implantation in the human body. It is beyond time that the FDA and researchers study what occurs in the female body after these chemicals have biodegraded into tissue and major organs," stated Keithley-Johnston.
Dr. Americo A. Simonini, MD, a cardiologist on staff at Cedar Sinai Hospital and UCLA Medical Center, who has treated patients with chronic chest pain following implant rupture and infiltration of silicone material adds these words of caution. "The long term follow-up (10 years or more) in patients with silicone breast implants reveals a significant risk of complications related to implant failure (rupture) and introduction of the contents therein into the body. The inflammatory reaction and scarring in the surrounding tissue of such patients as a result of this 'foreign body invasion' coupled with the ability of silicone implants to obscure mammographic images gives one pause when considering their overall safety. Unless there is conclusive safety data in large numbers of patients with long-term follow-up that can account for the above and other reported complications of silicone breast implants, the FDA should not reconsider its position on these cosmetic prostheses, especially given the fact that there are other safer alternatives available to patients in need of breast augmentation or reconstruction."
There is no longer any question that clear mammography is virtually impossible with implants in place. Further, the thicker new implants will probably make detection even more difficult. One woman reported 9 tumors hidden behind her gel implants.
When the NCI (National Cancer Institute) researchers compared the risks for the implant patients with the general population, they found that the implant patients were two to three times more likely to develop stomach cancer, leukemia, and cancers of the cervix, vulva and brain.
Along with Mary McDonough, who founded "In the Know" with other women in the entertainment industry, Kirkland was one of the first high profile celebrities to publicly talk about her implant horrors. Now other courageous and powerful women like Linda Blair, Leigh Taylor Young, Stevie Nicks, Jane Fonda, and Mariel Hemingway have also spoken out candidly.
For more information, please visit:
www.SallyKirkland.com
www.InTheKnow.org
www.BreastImplantAwareness.org
www.BreastImplantInfo.org
www.ToxicDiscovery.com
www.CommandTrust.org
Contact Info: Sally Kirkland 323.650.2215
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