BREAST IMPLANT HORROR 
LEAKY, SCARRING, BLACK WITH MOLD 
WHY WOMEN ARE TAKING THEM OUT 
The shocking health claims against saline implants 
By  
Lisa Collier Cool 

Glamour November 2000

(click for excerpts)

Update: April 9, 2006

In Spring, 2005 I received a request to take this article off the internet upon request of the author and Conde Nast Publications who publishes Glamour Magazine.

They claimed copyright violation and am complying.

I am leaving a few excerpts from this revealing and powerful article which has educated untold thousands as to the very real dangers of saline implants.

It is my understanding that excerpts, such as those below, are allowed.

Part of them are a "Battle of the Experts" between a La Jolla Plastic Surgeon and myself. Click here.

It is my belief that Conde Nast and Ms. Collier's request was 'inspired' by the Quackwatch / NCAHF Team whose 'public relations' work with the silicone industry is helping take down as much negative material about breast implants as possible. "Friends" of theirs in the 'silicone support network' have removed all their revealing webpages as well as a webring that connected many links together. For the breast implant industry, it's all about image and they want theirs as pretty as possible.

There is a long, long list of scientists, conventional and althernative doctors and health advocates like myself who have been and are on their "hit lists."

Dr. Bernard Patten was doing wonderful work helping figure out the maze of neurological complications with breast implants.

Please read his story, Memoirs of a Junk Scientist by Dr. Bernard Patten .

I believe they stirred it up ... never admitting that their corporate connections lead to med device and implant money interests.

Those of us critical of their industry backed 'viewpoints' and methods and those leading edge scientists/healers looking at the complexities of Multipile Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) are under attack by the so-called 'quackbusters.'

To me ... it is yet another victory of the breast implant industry to narrrow the information available exposing dangerous medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

Both Kathryn Gordon, myself and all the other wonderful women interviewed in this article worked closely and diligently with the Glamour Team to create such a fine expose. We all had great relationships with them. They were professional and factual.

Everyday new women contact us about their saline implant problems ... many who reach out after finding this article, either in the magazine format or here online.

Please click here to meet Patty Faussett, a beautiful and dedicated woman ... a powerful advcoate and wife and mother, creator of the Saline Support Group.

Meet Shari, another credible spirit who appeared on MTV sharing her son's and her experiences related to her implants.

To meet Dr. Kolb, quoted below, a Plastic Surgeon and implanted woman, please visit her website, Plastikos.

I will be forever grateful to Glamour Magazine and Conde Nast for taking the bold step and publishing this article  nearly 5 years ago.

The concerns and dangers expressed in this fine article are as true now as then.

EXCERPTS: 


Could saline implants–hardening, leaking, deflating and turning black with fungus–be making women desperately ill? Former implant recipient Kathryn Gordon thinks so, and a growing number of doctors agree. Glamour investigates. 


The squishy mound blackened with fungus in Kathryn Gordon’s fridge isn’t a lump of cheese gone bad. It’s what the 33-year-old former actress from Atlanta wore next to her heart, inside her bosom, for 11 years–a breast implant she claims made her so desperately ill, she almost committed suicide. 

In May of 1999, on the advice of a friend who knew someone whoseimplant had ruptured in a car accident, she went to see Susan Kolb,M.D., a plastic surgeon in Atlanta. "I didn’t even have to tell Dr.Kolb my symptoms–she already knew what they were," recalls Gordon. "Istarted crying when she asked questions like, ‘Are you slurring yourwords?’ and ‘Do you feel like someone is scratching inside your chest?’ At last I’d found a doctor who didn’t think I was crazy and actually understood what I was going through." Dr. Kolb, who has saline implants herself, urged Gordon to have hers removed immediately.


"When I opened her up, her breast tissue was very inflamed, and the implants looked black," recalls Dr. Kolb. "It was the third time I’d seen black implants in the 100 saline [implant] removals I’ve done. I believe the implants were darkened by a fungus, which then migrated into Kathryn’s bloodstream to cause the symptoms she was experiencing."

Six weeks after Dr. Kolb removed Gordon’s implants and treated her with antibiotics and antifungal drugs, Gordon felt fine.


ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DINA ROTH 
Saline Sound Off! 


Here, two experts duke it out over saline implant safety. 


THE PROS


LORI SALTZ, M.D., is a plastic surgeon in La Jolla, California, who has had silicone implants for 24 years and believes silicone and saline implants are safe. 


ON THE DANGERS OF INFECTION / DEFLATION: While there is a risk of infection in any elective surgery, I only fill implants with sterile saline through a closed system–from the IV bag through a sterile tube into the implant. If an implant deflates, your body will absorb the solution, which is the same as what’s in an IV bag at the hospital.  


ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN IMPLANTS AND AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS: There’s no proof to justify pinning the autoimmune complaints on implants. A million other things could be causing these symptoms. I haven’t seen any of these problems in my practice. 

BOTTOM LINE: I’m not saying everyone with breast implants is going to be happy. I see some women whose scar capsule around their implants contracts and hardens when we put them in. But it should be a woman’s choice, not the government’s decision.


 THE CONS


ILENA ROSENTHAL is director of the Humantics Foundation for Women, Breast Implant: Recovery and Discovery in San Diego. 


ON THE DANGERS OF INFECTION DEFLATION: The labels on 1-liter bottles of saline IV solution recommend storage at 77 degrees and include a discard date of about 18 months. With implants, the saline is stored in your body at 98.6 degrees for years, which, I believe, makes it a very good medium for fungi and other microbes to grow. I’ve run across a lot of women who have saline implants and symptoms of subclinical infections. 


ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN IMPLANTS AND AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS: I think the saline implant’s silicone shell could cause systematic (sic) [read: "systemic"] reactions in some cases. Women with saline implants complain about the same autoimmune problems that those with silicone-gel sacs did. 


BOTTOM LINE: I’ve seen thousands of women who got implants suffering healthwise. I just want anyone thinking about enhancing her breasts to realize that the risks are very real and serious, and that the complication rate is extraordinarily high. 

 

EILENE ZIMMERMAN


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