May 26, 1999

L’Honorable Ministre de la Justice

Madame Linda Goupil

Direction des Communications

Ministère de la Justice du Québec

Édifice Louis-Philippe-Pigeon

1200, route de l’Église, 6e étage

Sainte-Foy, Québec

Dear Madame Goupil:

It is indeed an honour and a privilege to write to you today.

Please give high regard to the information that Dr. Pierre Blais, Madame Micheline Lambert, and M. Tony Lambert will give you on May 31, 1999. The I.A.S. Implant Awareness Society holds them in high regard and it is a privilege for us to work with them.

The FDA’s Regulation of Silicone Breast Implants, a staff report to the U.S. Congress prepared by the Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee, dated December 1992, states on page 29, "implants were likely to break after 7 years" and on the same page declares "Dow Corning scientists made repeated references to the lack of safety data".

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Breast Implants, An Information Update, issued December 1998, states on page 15, "recommended removal of all gel-filled implants preferably before 8 years of implantation". Then why are doctors and plastic surgeons encouraging a woman to keep them for many years? In my personal case, 21 years.

I have been talking to a very, very ill woman, 56 years of age, and her implants are 30 years old. I talk to sick women every week, and their implants are 20 years old and older.

Now, the soybean-oil implants that were being touted as the finest, have been totally recalled by the FDA and are now banned around the informed world.

The plastic surgeons and the manufacturers are running the show with their unbridled greed. A plastic surgeon can earn over one million dollars a year on breast implants alone!

The literature of the plastic surgeons in Canada states that saline implants are "safe and effective" Our society sees this in a printed folder that is given to every woman to sign as her "informed consent". This is so far from the truth.

The FDA has placed breast implants in category III as dangerous devices of unproved safety. They are in an "allowed classification" only because of the USA’s grandfathering clause, a clause that is not recognized or used in law in Canada.

The precautionary principal law was used in The United Kingdom to ban the soybean-oil implants. It is time that this very same principal be used in Canada. The USA, United Kingdom, and Canada are all supposed to abide by this law.

Let Québec lead the way and stop this violence committed against women and children in Canada every day.

It is an acknowledged fact that silicone from the Implant’s shell alone crosses the placenta, affecting the unborn fetus, this was proved in Dow’s own laboratories 30 years ago and in women in Sweden.

Why must we allow the greed of the manufacturers and plastic surgeons to dictate to our government to protect their massive incomes, pushing the disability and welfare payments to sick women into the millions. In the I.A.S. Implant Awareness Society, seven-eighths of our members are on some kind of social assistance.

Many young women of child bearing ages are being implanted. They are not being informed that these yet-to-be-approved, "safe" implants are recommended for replacements in the seventh or eighth year. Many sixteen-year-old women, mentioned in news reports from California, are being implanted today.

Please place a moratorium on all breast implants until total safety can be truly proved and documented. The time has come, enough is enough. We are working toward the same goals here in British Columbia. Please, let Québec lead the way for all of Canada.

Sincerely,

Adella Matthew

President