EUROPE

France: Remove Bad Breast Implants

Expected order could affect 30,000 women.

French media is reporting that the government will order thousands of women this week to remove defective silicone breast implants. The move comes after a French company was shut down last year for making implants with cheap silicone normally used in electronics. By that point, 30,000 women in France had already received such implants, plus another 40,000 women in Britain. The bad implants also carry a high chance of rupturing, and panic peaked this week when French health officials announced that at least eight women who received them developed cancer (though no connection between silicone and breast cancer has been proven.) At least 2,000 French women have already filed police complaints. Another 250 British women are suing the U.K. clinics that gave them the bad implants.