Say what you like about PIP, the disgraced French company at the heart of the implants scandal: they might have had a serious problem with their quality control, but no one could question their productivity. Their faulty little fillets, jammed with industrial-grade silicone, travelled everywhere: into 40,000 British women, including some who were having NHS breast reconstructions after mastectomies; over to a Dutch supplier, where they were rebranded as Rofil-M and sold in eastern Europe; and, according to a Paris newspaper, even into men for buttock and chest implants.
Jean-Claude Mas, the company’s elderly founder, reportedly told police last November that he had been concealing the material used in his implants since 1997. His PIP gel cost a fraction of the price of the officially approved Nusil gel, and he allegedly described it as “better”. The women who have received PIP implants, which many have come to regard as ticking time-bombs in their chests, are unlikely to agree.
If one tiny benefit has come out of this scandal – which will cause enormous distress and potential injury to so many – it has been the stripping away of glossy euphemism from the cosmetic surgery industry. Over the years, what was initially regarded as a bizarre lunacy, the stitching of a silicone bag into a healthy female breast, has become increasingly normalised, particularly among younger women.
We have got used to the sight of bullet-proof breasts that point skywards, and the cheery chat of “boob-jobs” and “double-Ds”. In the ubiquitous advertisements for cosmetic surgery clinics, and within their consulting rooms, the buzz-words are of “fullness”, “pertness” and “enhanced femininity”. (Which is clearly code for “big breasts” – except it doesn’t make sense. We can all admire a Marilyn Monroe, but no one could accuse the slenderer forms of Kate Moss, Vanessa Paradis, or Audrey Hepburn of lacking “femininity”.)
Somehow, the recent talk of PIP implants rupturing and leaking industrial-grade silicone into lymph nodes – and the sight of a removed, faulty implant spooling into viscous yellow strands like a nicotine-stained tramp’s beard – doesn’t sit well with the dream. And nor should it. For the truth is that post-operative problems are not confined to PIP implants: there is always a risk of rupture and leakage, although at least the official ones contain medical grade silicone, not the material for sofa stuffing.
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