Breast implant recipients are at an increased risk of certain forms of cancer and multiple
scientific bodies have come forward and they say, this is dangerous. Don't do it, get it
off the market and they were very clear about it. Steve Luongo goes here to talk about it.
Steve's, Steve, you've involved in all types of litigation. This is a case I handled the
first round, when the first round of breast implants were out there and I tried some of
the first test cases, back then we knew how dangerous this was. But what's the new danger?
Well, right now the new danger is with the textured breast implants and what people are
finding through the research and the committees that you spoke of, is that these textured
breast implants are either causing cancer through the scar tissue that's being formed
in the scar package or capsule is what they call it or through a bacterial infection from
the surgical site. That's what they're finding. Yeah. What we found the first go around, Steve,
was that the, you had migration of the silicone, you had deterioration of the silicone packet
and it was causing auto-immune disease, scleroderma. It was causing serious, serious Raynaud's
syndrome, a whole host of auto-immune disease. Plenty of women died because of it. And we
were able to get it off the market and, and so all of a sudden, just like usual, everybody
forgets about it, it's back on the market. Right?
Absolutely. And, and what we're dealing with in this particular litigation is the textured
breast implants compared to what's also known as the smooth surface textured breast implants.
And what we're finding is that there's a specific type of cancer that's being developed by these
women who have had these implants, which is anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a non-Hodgkin's
type of lymphoma cancer. It's being developed when they've had the implant for about eight
to ten years. So it's not something that's readily available. It's not something that
comes up right away, but it's something down the road that they're being impacted with
and obviously results in serious conditions. One thing we found in the first round of the
litigation years, decade ago, a couple, decade and a half, is that the doctors would not
warn patients. They, the doctors knew about it, but they wouldn't warn patients. What's
happening here? Right. And that, that's an issue as well.
Doctors should be warning patients because these conditions are known. The litigation's
been going on for several years, as well as scientific committees, such as the world health
organization, the FDA, they've been releasing statements to the public identifying, educating
the public about these known effects. All 33 European nations have taken the Allergan
textured breast implant off the market. It's Allergan, specifically that is the textured
implant. Yes sir.
And you're involved in litigation on this case. Tell me about the litigation that's
taken place. Is it a class? So. And I apologize. Yes, sir. Right now it's
a class of litigation being up in New York or New Jersey rather and the litigation is
currently on hold as will, far as the judge makes a determination as far as the preemptive
issue. Cases are being accepted. Cases are being filed. The new cases are being allowed
until July of 2021. So if a woman is suffering from these conditions, has been seeing it.
She needs to get busy. Absolutely.
And get something filed. So the, the, one of the big problems with the breast implant,
the first round with the breast implant, was not only that the doctors didn't, didn't tell
that they wouldn't tell the patients, but the industry had an all out kind of program
to make women feel comfortable with it. They failed to tell women that there's a process
without any type of implant where they can rebuild the, the breast with natural tissue.
That was never discussed. They would say, doctors can't do that. Well, you shouldn't
do that. And it was a big push by the industry to say, this is the quick answer, right?
Absolutely. What, what should someone do if they have
implants? What should they be looking at right now?
Well, first and foremost, we've been talking a lot about textured implants, but also smooth
implants have also been at risk as well for these cancer and for the, the symptoms that
we see and the symptoms that we see are swelling of the breast implant area. There's also tenderness
there as well as a mass that can form and we're also talking about loss of appetite,
fatigue, night sweats as well as lymphoma. Are they having hair loss? The first round
hair loss was a big problem. That isn't reported as a common factor.
Yeah. It may come up on a few cases.
Yeah. Well, what was happening, the hair loss was
caused by the auto-immune reaction. And one, one sign, people would come into my office,
I could look at exactly the same symptoms, they were startling. Black under the eyes,
hair falling out, diminished weight. It was, it was, and this went on Steve for, this went
on for more than five years when nobody did anything about it. So good for you. Keep it
up. Good luck on this project. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, oh boy, this is a great story. Well, she's been placed in charge of
the FDA on an interim basis, but she could end up being the permanent pick and that is
terrifying. What, it's like nobody, it's like, we forgot what she's, what her history is.
Pick it up from there. Janet Woodcock has been kind of kicking around
in and out of the FDA for, you know, 20 to 30 years at this point. But all the way back
in the Obama administration is when she really started to kind of get involved in FDA decision
processes on behalf of the big pharmaceutical companies. One of the incidences back in 2011,
she testified before Congress and went and said, listen, you've passed a law saying we
can't have these financial ties, but oh, now I can't find anybody willing to serve on committees
and I need, I need these people from the drug industry to come in and be a part of the FDA.
And she convinced the director of the FB, FDA to go and say the same thing and of course
they got their way. Big pharma came back into the FDA during the Obama years because of
Janet Woodcock. Oh, let me just tell you, there was a prosperous
time for pharma during the Obama years and, and you would, you would have thought that
Trump would have tapped down on that, but he didn't. They continued to grow.
Right. The story I think of is eteplirsen, eteplirsen
was a drug that was for muscular dystrophy. Everybody at the FDA said, do not allow this
drug on the market. Make sure you do not let, her advisors told her that, her in-house scientists
told her that, the people who had studied the drug study said don't allow it, but she
allowed it because she's in so much love with the pharmaceutical industry, that she was
afraid that Sarepta, that was the, that was the company that was manufacturing. She was
afraid it was going to adversely affect them financially. So she did what nobody else has
ever done. There's, that her advisors said, there's no efficacy to this product. It doesn't
work. It's unnecessary. It's going to hurt these people even more with muscular dystrophy,
don't do it. And she makes, has private meetings has private meetings with Sarepta. We don't
know what took place in the meetings, but the next thing we know, she's letting it on
the market. This is who Biden wants to head the FDA.
Right. And again, just to point this out, everybody else in that agency told her, they
said, look, Dr. Woodcock, this drug is pointless. It's useless, it's dangerous. It's going to
kill people and it doesn't help anybody. This is a bad drug. We're not going to do it. And
she said, well, I'm going to make you do it anyway. I'm going to go talk to Sarepta. We're
going to make this happen. This drug's going on the market and that is exactly what happened.
And that's, people have to understand, like that's a lot of power for her to have, because
she was not the head of the FDA by any stretch of the imagination.
No, no. But now if she's the head, can you imagine what she's going to do?