THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406180012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Medium
DATELINE: 940620 LENGTH:
Now they tell us.
Unfortunately, it is too late for all the women, including many mastectomy victims, who might have considered breast implants. Not even a study by the prestigious Mayo Clinic can now reverse the campaign to abolish the implants that was undertaken by Naderites at Public Citizen, their trial lawyer outriders and the nannies at the Food and Drug Administration.
{REST} The study is further evidence that silicone implants are not the culprit the FDA presumed in forcing them off the market. Hundreds of thousands of women who have the implants and are healthy, however, knew that already. The implant manufacturers successfully defended their product in most of the civil suits that were brought against them. Even the medical experts the FDA itself consulted before it issued its ban endorsed them.
None of this counted with the trial lawyers, however, who bludgeoned the implant manufacturers into setting up a $4.3 billion fund to ``compensate'' women who have received implants and have or have had any one of numerous illnesses supposedly linked to them. The lawyers, of course, will have the last laugh. Twenty-two lawyers between them will split most of the $1 billion in contingency fees.
The Mayo Clinic study is not definitive, but it certainly beats the anecdotal evidence on which the FDA rushed to judgment. The FDA, however, seems unfazed by the study's results. ``If it turns out that implants are not associated with connective-tissue disease,'' said an FDA official, ``we will move forward to take that into account.''
Of course, no sane company is going to get back into the implant business, even if the FDA should give the all-clear. The legal exposure is too great.
Billions of dollars have been wasted and a useful product driven from the market by a contingency fee-driven scare campaign. No longer is it necessary to even prove a manufacturer is at fault before collecting damages. Only in America.
by CNB