Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-13-Speech-4-037"
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"en.20030213.3.4-037"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thousands of women have petitioned Parliament to take a stand on the dangers inherent in the use of silicone breast implants. Breast implants are subject to the standard quality and safety requirements for medical devices, being covered – as you also mentioned, Commissioner – by Directive 93/42/EEC.
It was lobbying from self-help groups of women suffering adverse effects from silicon-gel breast implants that prompted the Commission Communication. Silicon implants were used for years before there was regulation or surveillance of their use. The draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, my colleague, Mrs Ria Oomen-Ruijten, who unfortunately is unable to be here today, refers in particular to the need for open and transparent information about silicon implants.
Public health and healthcare issues are for the most part the competence of the Member States. Together with Mrs Stihler, we now call on all of the Member States to introduce a national register including information about how medical aftercare is provided and how it is taken up.
Personal privacy must be protected. Access to the registers will therefore have to be restricted and their contents treated as confidential. Best practice will have to be publicised and then applied Europe-wide. We need research and further development work to be carried out on safety and implant toleration. Here the introduction of a passport for implant recipients and compulsory aftercare examinations might also be helpful for gathering data.
Accurate information must not be given in the form of advertising. Advertising will increase demand for implants. What is needed, however, is balanced information. Doctors and nurses – both male and female – have a particular responsibility here to provide patients with objective, complete and scientifically up-to-date information in writing about all the details of their implants, such as the identification number, volume and type.
I should like to thank Mrs Stihler for her balanced report. Ladies and gentlemen, in my view, breast implants are also an integral part of health. They are needed to reconstruct breasts. Aesthetic reasons do often play a role, but if someone thinks that they are inferior then it is their general health that suffers. With the help of implants their sense of well-being can be restored."@en1
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