Taiwan Women’s Link and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) yesterday urged the Ministry of Health and Welfare to inform people about the health risk of breast implants.
The US Food and Drug Administration in 2011 identified a possible link between breast implants and the development of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), Women’s Link founder and standing director Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) said.
The breast implant-associated ALCL (BIA-ALCL) is not breast cancer, but a cancer of the immune system, she said, adding that it is mostly found in scar tissue and fluid near implants.
Photo: CNA
As of September last year, the US agency had received 457 unique medical device reports that meet the pathologic criteria of BIA-ALCL, including nine resulting in death, and most data suggest that BIA-ALCL occurs more frequently after placement of breast implants with textured surfaces than those with smooth surfaces, Huang said.
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency until September last year received 57 reports of ALCL in patients with breast implants, of which 45 cases meet the WHO diagnostic criteria for BIA-ALCL, and the country launched a Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry to collect data and detect early warning signs about people with implants, Lin said.
Data from Australia and Canada showed that 393 people in Taiwan were diagnosed with ALCL in 2016, but there are no data that can help establish a link with breast implants, Huang said, adding that the government does not monitor the safety of breast implants and there is no registry.
The Taiwanese Food and Drug Administration only issued a document informing the Taiwan Society of Plastic Surgery, the Chinese Society of Cosmetic Surgery and Anti-aging Medicine, and others of the risks in 2011 and 2017, Lin said.
Doctors were asked to evaluate and observe the situation, and inform authorities about the association between ALCL and breast implants, but the agency has not conducted a survey to assess the actual situation, she said.
The government should launch a national breast implant registry to collect data on the link between cosmetic surgery and ALCL, as well as other health risks, Lin and Huang said.
People should also be informed about the health risks in the consent form given to patients before breast implant surgery.
Department of Medical Affairs official Liu Yueh-ping (劉越萍) said that clinics and hospitals are required to register the product codes for breast implants, but the data are kept at medical facilities.
The health ministry would consider adding information about ALCL to consent forms and ask specialists to assess the link between ALCL cases and breast implants in Taiwan, she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater