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PARIS (Reuters) - France and Britain issued conflicting suggestion on Friday to tens of thousands of women with breast implants made of cheap pertaining silicone that some fear pose hale condition risks.

The French government urged 30,000 women in France to endeavor removal of the implants, made ~ means of now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), for the cause that of the danger they could burst and cause inflammation and irritation. There was no evidence of any increased cancer hazard, it said.

But in Britain, to what an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 women are assumed, Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies reported: "Women with PIP implants should not subsist unduly worried. We have no proof of a link to cancer or every increased risk of rupture. If women are concerned they should give sound to their surgeon."

Removing implants "carries risks in itself", she reported.

"I do think that every woman who has these implants should endure and get checked ... It's wagerer to have them replaced than to worry end for end them rupturing," said British woman Pat Demetriou, who had reprehensible PIP implants removed in 2010.

Nigel Mercer of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons before-mentioned the French move was "certainly not silly" while British cosmetic surgeon Kevin Hancock before-mentioned the divergent government responses would attempt distress for British women.

Concerns in France elementary surfaced about two years ago then surgeons started reporting abnormally high quarrel rates, leading to a flood of legitimate complaints, the company's bankruptcy and a discredit that has spread across the universe.

Regulatory filings show that signs of legal problems and financial losses can subsist traced back as far as 2003.

Founded ~ the agency of Jean-Claude Mas - who was anciently a butcher, according to a surgeon who knew him - PIP produced through 100,000 implants a year since the better part of two decades before its products were ordered off the place of traffic in early 2010.

Mas is wanted through Costa Rica for "life and health" offences, according to a notice posted on the website of the international police agency Interpol.

Local investigative police in Costa Rica related a man identified as Jean Claude Mas Florent was arrested ~ dint of. national police in Costa Rica's Cartago business on June 1, 2010 for imprudent driving under the influence of spirits of wine, a crime that can carry a penitentiary sentence.

He was handed a court era for November 21, 2010, but fled the rural parts and never appeared before court. It was unclear whether or not there was any link between that hindrance and the Interpol notice.

As numerous as 300,000 women worldwide may have received the gel products, used to raise breast size or repair lost combination. They were exported to Latin American countries of that kind as Brazil and Argentina, and Western European markets including Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Brazil's freedom from disease watchdog called for users of PIP implants to survey their doctor for checks. More than 25,000 units were used in Brazil - a unrefined obsessed with appearance and which has a bulky cosmetic surgery industry.

Australia's healthcare watchdog says nearly 8,900 of the implants were used in women there, some of whom had complained on the eve splitting and leaking.

Germany's medical safety board advised women with PIP implants to confer their doctors for checks, but stopped condensed of recommending their removal.

PIP recognizes that its products were faulty but argues that it is inmost nature unduly singled out, the company's barrister said.

"The implants had flaws but the PIP implants are not the and nothing else ones on the market that had problems," barrister Yves Haddad told Reuters. "The fact is that everyone who makes implants has a percentage of failures."

According to him, collection founder Mas, 72, is in France still does not intend to make national comment.

PUBLIC MONEY

In a recital addressed to French women, the hale condition ministry said public healthcare funds would be used to finance the recommended ingraft removals, at a cost estimated at 60 a thousand thousand euros ($78 million).

New implants would have ~ing paid for in cases where the beginning implant was inserted for medical reasons, typically by reason of reconstruction after breast cancer treatment.

Associations representing women through PIP implants have been demanding that every one of replacements, including cases of implants that were completely cosmetic, be publicly funded.

"This announcement is just a smokescreen and the victims of PIP are storming," said Alexandra Blachere, head of the society of PIP implant users in France. "PIP implants are unsafe even excluding cancer. The state be possible to't simply order them to have existence removed and then leave women to gain by afterwards."

Philippe Courtois, a limb of the law for a French association of PIP infix users, said many victims were seeking greater quantity extensive compensation than basic cover of implant removals.

Among them is Annie Mesnil, 62, a chest cancer sufferer who had reconstructive surgery a decade gone but had to spend a doom of money to get PIP implants secluded last June.

"This is not the period of our fight," she said.

CHEAP SILICONE

PIP was placed into adjustment in March 2010 with losses of 9 the public euros after the French medical preservation agency recalled its implants. In a posterior inspection of its manufacturing site, officials plant it was using industrial silicone not approved ~ means of health authorities, and only about a tithe as expensive as approved gel.

An inquisition found a majority of implants made by PIP since 2001 contained the unapproved gel. Industrial silicone is used in a range of products from computers to cookware.

That gel, former PIP worker Mariaccia told Reuters, was ~y in-house production rather than bought in ~ means of the firm.

More than 2,000 women in France bring forth filed legal complaints and another 250 be under the necessity done so in Britain, where body of rules firms said they had receive a inundate of inquiries in recent days.

Despite the British decisions' advice, plastic surgeon Hancock, of the Liverpool Women's Hospital, told Reuters in that place were concerns in the profession throughout a high rupture rate.

"We are worried with respect to the rupture risk because it is the dissolution that brings the contents into from father to son contact with the body's tissues," he declared. "We know that the contents were not which they were supposed to be. So in not particular we agree with the (French) decision to remove them."

A spokesman because the German company TUV Rheinland, what one. provided quality certification of PIP's fruit facilities until March 2010, said its send was to check the production conduct, not the content of the silicone.

TV Rheinland sued PIP in February 2011, claiming it had been "thoroughly and continuously misled" ~ dint of. PIP about a change in the silicone that was used.

Several PIP executives are expected to stand opposite to charges of aggravated fraud in every ongoing court case in France, which exposes them to possible jail conditions of up to five years.

Courtois, the solicitor for PIP implant users, said that temptation was likely to be scheduled with a view to next October.

The scandal has been rekindled in new weeks by the death of a cancer sufferer who had such implants, prompting prosecutors to begin another preliminary inquiry that will assess whether there are grounds for more serious charges of involuntary murder.

(Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage in Paris, Jean Francois Rosnoblet in Marseilles, Estelle Shirbon and Kate Kelland in Britain, Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Patrick Rucker in Mexico City; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Roche and Michael Roddy)

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