France makes arrest in breast-implant scandal

AL Jazeera English Europe

Former head of company at the centre of health scare affecting women worldwide may be charged with manslaughter.   Last Modified: 26 Jan 2012 10:52 inShare3

Mas admits to using industrial grade silicon for implants, but rejects that there were any health risks [AFP] Police in southeastern France have arrested the former head of a French company at the centre of a breast-implant health scandal that has affected tens of thousands of women worldwide, police say. Jean-Claude Mas, who ran the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), was detained at his residence in the Mediterranean coastal town of Six Fours Les Plages shortly before dawn, a police official told the Associated Press news agency. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity as the case is now officially in the hand of judicial investigators. Police say they are searching the residence. The implants were pulled from the market in several countries in and beyond Europe amid fears they could rupture and leak silicone into the body. A French police source told the Reuters news agency that Mas could be charged with manslaughter. He will be held for 48 hours while investigators decide what to charge him with: involuntary manslaughter or causing injury. A second PIP executive, former chief financial officer Claude Couty, was also arrested under an investigation that was opened in the southern port city of Marseille, close to PIP's former premises, on December 8. Arrests welcomed The investigation came after the death from cancer in 2010 of a woman with PIP implants, although health authorities in France and other countries have stressed that there is no proven link between the implants and cancer. Lawyers for women who have filed complaints in connection with the implants have hailed the news of the arrest as positive. "This is a comfort for the victims," said Laurent Gaudon, whose clients accuse PIP and surgeons who used its implants of fraud. "It's the feeling that justice is advancing and they have not been forgotten. It's the assurance that the guilty are at last going to be held accountable." Philippe Courtois, who represents a group of 1,300 people with PIP implants, said it was vital Mas was not allowed to flee justice. "A degree of provisionary detention is desirable," he said. In a separate development on Wednesday, health authorities in Brazil said that the government will be fining private health plans that refuse to pay for the removal and replacement of the faulty implants sold by PIP and a Dutch company.

Source: Agencies

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