Online NewsHour: Breast Implants -- May 30, 1996

BREAST IMPLANTS

MAY 30, 1996

TRANSCRIPT

An update on the lawsuits filed against breast implant manufacturers. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Jimmie Blair had a double mastectomy in 1980 because of a strong family history of breast cancer. Her breasts were reconstructed with silicone gel implants. She avoided cancer but says the breast implant ruined her health. The 47-year-old Blair can hardly get around and everything hurts.
JIMMIE BLAIR: My hands are really bad. You know, a lot of times in the morning they'll be swelled all up and then in the evening they, uh, they'll go down, but they ache all the way out to the ends of my fingers, my ankles, and my hips. My hips are the worst as far as getting real bad catches. They even catch when I lay down at night.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Blair's husband, Ron, left his $100,000 a year traveling sales job to stay home and help his wife. He works at the Firestone plant in DeKalb, Illinois now but hasn't been able to get hired full-time, so he has no health insurance to help with his wife's care.
RON BLAIR: It's terrible to have to sit and watch your wife age so fast. She was totally active and, and she was always an inspiration to me, and now all of a sudden you have to sit and watch her deteriorate.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The Blairs had hoped to get some financial relief when breast implant manufacturers agreed to a $4 1/4 billion settlement last year, the largest class action settlement in history. The global settlement encompassed all implant manufacturers. Because Blair was diagnosed as 100 percent disabled, she would have received $780,000 from the settlement. But the global settlement fell apart when the class ballooned to 440,000 women. Manufacturers realized with so many women claiming damage even the $4 1/4 billion would not be enough to pay all the claims. Dow Corning, the largest manufacturer, filed bankruptcy. But five other manufacturers, afraid of a slew of private lawsuits, agreed to a revised settlement but with much lower awards. Women with implants manufactured by Dow Corning must wait to see what the bankruptcy judge decides about compensation. Jimmie Blair's attorney, Kenneth Moll, says now Blair and other women in the revised settlement have a difficult choice to make.
KENNETH MOLL, Lawyer: The critical decision is that they have to decide whether or not to accept the offer being offered to them by the settling defendants or opt out and file a lawsuit.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The most Jimmie Blair would be eligible for under the new settlement is $100,000. The Blairs have spent many hours trying to decide what to do.
RON BLAIR: So you're only talking $100,000.
JIMMIE BLAIR: I know. I don't think that's going to do anything so--
RON BLAIR: It won't even pay your medical bills.
JIMMIE BLAIR: I know that. But, you know, what are they gonna do with it? We'll just have to let him advise us but I don't think--I think we're just going to have to opt out.
RON BLAIR: I don't know hon. I just wish--all the money in the world wouldn't change a thing--you feel like you do.
JIMMIE BLAIR: Yeah. I know.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Carla Hobbs-James is facing the same dilemma. Hobbs-James, who lives in Chicago with her 22 year old son, had a double mastectomy after a cancer diagnosis five years ago. Soon after breast reconstruction with silicone gel implants, she began having problems.
CARLA HOBBS-JAMES: I had arthritis in every joint of my body. I couldn't use my fingers. When I'd step out of bed, I couldn't put pressure on my feet because the joints were very sore. I had constant diarrhea. It was like food just went through me.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Hobbs-James' symptoms improved after she had her implants removed but she still experiences problems. She lost her job because of absences and now sells a fruit and vegetable concentrate out of her home. She had hoped to use money from the global settlement to pay off medical bills. Now she worries the current offer will also fall apart.
CARLA HOBBS-JAMES: I really think I'll probably opt out. I need to talk with my attorney and see what my options are but the global is so uncertain that that's what I'm leaning towards.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Moll advises most of clients to opt out of the revised settlement and file an individual lawsuit.
KENNETH MOLL: Unfortunately the manufacturers have worn a lot of women down, a lot of attorneys down, and scared a lot of women into thinking that they might not receive anything if they don't receive this, this paltry or meager amount that they're being offered, what they're offering women now. Unfortunately some women are going to accept the revised settlement program. We strongly urge that if you have a good case, opt out, proceed with litigation. We need to show the public that silicone implants cause problems.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Those words anger the chief of plastic surgery at Northwestern University's Medical School in Chicago. Dr. Thomas Mustoe said it is the lawyers that cause problems, not silicone gel implants.
DR. THOMAS MUSTOE, Plastic Surgeon: I do think that, that silicone gel implants in a patient who's properly informed are a reasonable and safe choice, so I think by any stretch of imagination, most of those 400,000 do--even if they have health problems, they're not related to their implants. So I do think that this is a case, yes, of, a case of legal excess in our country.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Mustoe points to research done since the original global settlement was reached that does not show a major health risk from silicone gel implants. Dr. Charles Hennekens, chief of preventive medicine at the Harvard Medical School, authored the latest study looking at the possible association between the implants and connective tissue diseases such as arthritis.
DR. CHARLES HENNEKENS, Harvard Medical School: Our study provides reassuring evidence against any large hazard of connective tissue disorders in women who have had breast implants. It raises the possibility but by no means documents a small hazard of connective tissue disorders among women with breast implants.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Hennekens' research follows the same general conclusions as two earlier major studies reported in the "New England Journal of Medicine," the Mayo Clinic Study and the Harvard Nurses' Health Study. But attorney Moll says none of those studies looked at atypical connective tissue disease, which is what many of Moll's clients claim they have. He also argues that the studies are tainted because Dow Corning and other manufacturers partially funded them.
KENNETH MOLL: What we have are doctors--we don't pay them--they actually saw women. They saw--they had the reactions to silicone and wrote about it. That doesn't get as much media attention as Dow Corning putting in millions of dollars to fund an institution like Mayo Clinic or Harvard hiring big named doctors and getting it published in the "New England Journal of Medicine."
DR. CHARLES HENNEKENS: Dow corning had nothing to do with the design, conduct, analysis, or interpretation of the data from our study. And I think it would be unfortunate if we believed that because a study was funded by industry one couldn't believe the results.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Women who decide to file individual lawsuits will have to decide whether they think juries will find the research convincing. Hobbs-James wanted to file her own lawsuit, but in her case, Moll advised staying in this settlement.
KENNETH MOLL: So unfortunately the manufacturer of your implants is a company that has little money and would not survive any type of lawsuit, so the recommendation would probably be to stay in--
CARLA HOBBS-JAMES: Stay in.
KENNETH MOLL: --the revised settlement program and take whatever you can, rather than opt out and risk not receiving anything. How do you feel about that?
CARLA HOBBS-JAMES: Sick. I thought I was sick. I'm really sick now. Based on one projected--you know, the projection at first, $50,000 would hardly pay for the pain and suffering that I've had from the silicone implants.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But in Jimmy Blair's case, Moll recommends that she does file her own suit. The manufacturers of Blair's implants, 3-M and Bristol-Meyers, are on solid financial footing. Blair says she is willing to wait the ten to twelve years it might take to settle the lawsuit because the $100,000 offer just doesn't meet her needs.
JIMMIE BLAIR: The $100,000 is not going to allow us--last ten to twelve years, you know. If my health gets any worse in the next--like it's grown in the last three or four years, then, you know, it's just not going to go anywhere, so what's gonna matter--you know, what difference is this going to make? Might as well see if, you know, I can get some help that will kind of relieve the family, you know, and help take care of me as, you know, as I get older and things because that just wouldn't do anything for me.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Blair and Hobbs-James and all the other women in the lawsuit will be getting letters determining their status in the revised settlement within the next three months. They will then have 45 days to make a very difficult decision--take the money now or sue on their own.

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