TUSKEEGEE MEN ARE NOT ALONE; EARLY INVESTIGATIONAL BREAST IMPLANT WOMEN ARE ALSO VICTIMS OF SURGITEK/GENERAL ELECTRIC VIOLATION OF LAWS OF NURENBERG

So many times I have picked up newspaper and read spoon fed articles by journalists playing the big manufacturer billion dollar public relations game on women injured by breast implants. These women are the proof there are problems with silicone being placed into intrabody cavity. Do these women have to wait 30 years before there is recognition of things-gone-wrong and that the government, FDA, present breast implant global settlement have sat back and quietly rather than ruffle the feathers of Big Business..

I had breast implants in 1974 by Georgiade/Surgitek/General Electric Silicone; there were many symptoms along the way but I was totally unaware symptoms were connected to breast implants. Nights being awakened with hot branding irons in my joints, memory loss problems involving being locked in my own car in my own driveway and not knowing how to get out, forgetting names of foods and appliances like refrigerator; butterfly rash on face, and then extending to chest and upper thighs. Breasts that felt like a boil ready to burst. The effects of silicone in the body are slow and insidious and you slowly go down hill.

Time and time again I went for help and was told take aspirin, take steroids,etc. Finally in 1994 I realized the connection and had the implants out and filed papers for the global settlement. Physicians here in North Carolina were not helpful in anyway on this issue of breast implants and their only interest was to get you out of their office so they would not be involved and the institution where my type implant was designed were interested first and foremost in their own culpability and ridding themselves of the issue.. With no lawyer and no physician to assist me I borrowed money which I cannot now pay back to seek medical care and explantation and stumbled thru the bureacracy alone. I was too ill to fight more. After signing to accept thefixed settlement in November 1996 I received a late report back on the analysis of my breast implants. On 12/96 I was informed I was an uninformed, unconsenting recipient of a clinical study/experimental prototype implant of very short- run duration for the benefit of the physician and the manufacturers. My implants had many major safety defects, parts missing, the gel in each implant was different, did not adhere to design specifications for implants, even had defect in the gel-fill-hole and yet the Global settlement denied me rupture category. They were defective the day they were put in me in 1974 and I walked around 20 years not knowing I had participated in a clinical study.

How many other women are there out there who thru exchanging implants may have discarded them or women who did not have their implants analyzed as they did not realize the value of this information?

Why are victims of breast implant research not treated with the same concern as the men of Tuskeegee?

Recently (8/22/97), General Electric who provided silicone and shell materials until 9/ 1976 and for my implants was allowed to walk away from the breast implant settlement even tho they did research on silicone, provided technical assistance to manufacturers and apparently since there were different chemical composition gel in my implants, provided double blind study silicone gel for implants. Why is the Federal Court, FDA allowing this to happen without looking into it? Why are journalists so easily bought out by big business propaganda and run with inaccurate information ; when the bottom line is there was human experimentation performed on uninformed, unconsenting subjects . Someone needs to wake up. I am sure I am not the only one, where are the others from the 1970-1976 time period? What recourse is available to me when the Federal Courts, the FDA uphold this travesty and violaton of the Nurenberg Code.

Barbara in North Carolina