Fears over 'harmful' platinum in breast implants

HIGH concentrations of potentially harmful platinum have been found in women with silicone breast implants and in the children they have breast-fed, according to a new scientific study.

The researchers emphasise that the type of the heavy metal detected in the women’s blood and urine was different from the platinum often present in the body in tiny quantities. It was a highly reactive platinum, they said, used to help turn silicone oil into the honey-like gel that lends a more natural feel to a breast implant.

Concentrations were up to three times higher than in women who didn’t have breast implants, according to findings by SVM Maharaj, an American-based chemist who was due to present the findings yesterday to the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia.

Ernest Lykissa, a forensic and clinical toxicologist who co-authored the paper, said the study’s sample size was small, but added it fairly represented hundreds of women with implants he has studied over the years.

Women who had implants for the longest time recorded the highest platinum concentrations. The heavy metal was also found in bone marrow, where blood cells are made.

Distinct from platinum released by catalytic converters in cars, platinum in implants is treated with nitric and hydrochloric acids and becomes very reactive, Lykissa said. It readily binds in the human body, especially to nerve endings, short-circuiting communication with the brain.

"You see green, but you perceive a full moon," he said. "All of a sudden, your brain system is not working right."

Some women developed nervous tics, had faulty perception, and impaired hearing and vision, he said. Children born to women with implants had problems with eyesight and hearing, too, but those disorders "may have been caused by something else," he added.

This latest warning flies in the face of the popularity of cosmetic breast implants. Across the UK, the number of women having them continues to rise, particularly in Scotland.

The BUPA hospital in Murrayfield, Edinburgh, has reported a higher than average rise in the number of breast-enlargement operations in the last year - an increase of 32 per cent, as opposed to 28 per cent UK-wide for the operation, which costs at least 3,600.

Mark Butterworth, a consultant plastic surgeon based at the hospital, said such research was very difficult to validate.

"I’ve never heard of such claims in relation to platinum before although there were concerns expressed that titanium-coated breast implants should be removed from the market," he said, adding that he was satisfied that silicone implants currently available were safe.

"An independent review group commissioned by the UK government in 1998 said that the silicone breast implants available are safe and should continue to be used for cosmetic and reconstructive surgery," he said.

Martyn Webster, a consultant plastic surgeon at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, said he had not heard of any claims linking platinum levels in the body and breast implants before - but he took issue with the claim that any harmful effects from silicone implants could be passed on to a child.

"I would have to see the full detail of the paper, but a woman who has had a breast implant is not likely to pass on any more silicone to a child than they would get from the teat of a bottle, and millions of children are bottle fed," he said.

David Sharpe, a member of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, was more forthright.

"The potential for harm is grossly exaggerated," he said. "But there is a lot of money to be made in litigation so I am sure we haven’t heard the end of it."