Interpol on Friday issued a “red notice” seeking the arrest of Frenchman Jean-Claude Mas, founder of the breast implant company at the center of a widespread women’s health scare.
Mas, 72, whose picture appears on the Interpol Web site, is listed as being sought in Costa Rica for offenses concerning “life and health.”
France’s health ministry on Friday advised 30,000 women with breast implants made by the now-bankrupt Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) to have them removed and offered to pay for the procedure, saying that while there is no proven cancer risk, they could rupture.
Photo: EPA
Tens of thousands of women in more than 65 countries around the world have the same implants, made from industrial rather than medical quality silicone. Most of them live in South America and western Europe.
About 42,000 women in Britain are thought to have the implants, according to a government watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
The agency said it had received 411 reports of PIP implants failing in British patients since 2001.
More than 250 British women are taking court action against clinics where they had operations to insert PIP implants, and others are expected to follow suit.
PIP, once the world’s third--largest breast implant company supplying more than 100,000 implants a year, was shut down and its products banned last year after it was revealed to have been using the non-authorized silicone gel.
Interpol’s red notice is tantamount to an international arrest warrant, though the agency, as a facilitator of cooperation among national police forces, does not have the authority to issue warrants in the formal sense.
France took a costly and unprecedented leap in offering to pay for 30,000 women to have their breast implants removed.
Over the past week, the safety fears have created a public furor over something usually kept private, even in France. Women, some whose own families did not know they had their breasts enlarged, marched on Paris to demand more attention to worries about what might be happening inside them. Images of leaky, blubbery implants and women having mammograms have been splashed on French TV.
More than 1,000 ruptures pushed French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand to recommend that the estimated 30,000 women in France with the implants get them removed at the state’s expense.
Bertrand insisted the removals would be “preventive” and not urgent, and French health authorities said they had found nothing to link the implants to nine cases of cancer in women. The death last month of a woman who had the implants and developed a rare cancer — anaplastic large-cell lymphoma — had catalyzed worries.
France’s health safety agency says the PIP implants appear to be more rupture-prone than other types. Also, investigators say PIP used industrial silicone instead of the medical variety to save money. However, the medical risks posed by industrial silicone are unclear.
The financial burden of the French government’s decision falls on the state healthcare system, which estimated the removals could cost 60 million euros (US$78 million) at a time when the country is teetering on the brink of another recession and struggling with debt.
In recommending removal, the government noted the risks associated with major surgery and general anesthesia.
Because of those risks, many women may decide against removal. The government said those women should be examined every six months.
After the French decision, the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency announced that it did not see enough proof of cancer or an excessive risk of rupture to recommend women in Britain have the implants removed.
British Department of Health Chief Scientific Adviser Sally Davies said women “should not be unduly worried.”
“While we respect the French government’s decision, no other country is taking similar steps because we currently have no evidence to support it,” she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese