Exploding breast implants have been banned by one government, ignored by others, injured thousands of women and exposed the dangerous logic which drives capitalism to put profit for a few before the health of the masses.

Shortly before Christmas, the French government made the removal of the toxic PIP breast implant available free through the public health system. The Tory government is engulfed in a growing backlash over its refusal to do the same, leaving thousands of women at risk from life-threatening illness.

This decision was taken after tests carried out since 2010 found that the implants were more likely to rupture, and women with the implants faced an increased risk from cancer.

The implants used a form of industrial-grade silicone which is explicitly banned from medical use.

The head of the breast implant company at the centre of the scandal, Jean-Claude Mas, admitted using cheap silicone gel in his products to cut costs but told police he had “nothing to say” to those affected. He also admitted using a silicone that was not authorised and said company staff were instructed to hide this from inspectors.

Between 300,000 and 400,000 women in 65 countries, including 40,000 in Britain are believed to have the PIP implants. PIP replaced medical-grade silicone with a toxic substitute in order to cut costs.

The NHS and private clinics began to use them, as they were slightly cheaper than previous implants. The result is that hundreds of thousands of women have been put at risk of serious injury and illness, for the sake of a company’s profit margins.

Problems with the PIP implant first came to light in March 2010, despite a surgeon, Brook Berry, advising against their use back in 2007. This followed one his patients who’d suffered from breast cancer having to undergo more surgery at an NHS hospital to repair damage caused by the failure of silicon implants which she received as part of a reconstructive procedure.

Despite it been written up and his letter published to the British Journal of Plastic Surgeons, the British regulator, then the Medical Devices Agency (MDA) took no action.

Again in February 2009, Mark Harvey, the head of litigation with Hugh James solicitors in Cardiff who has about 350 possible claimants in a class action, had become so alarmed by the growing number of complaints landing on his door step, that he wrote to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – the body that took over from the MDA – to alert them to a possible problem.

“When I first went to the MHRA I was brushed off,” said Mr Harvey, “I told them I had been instructed in a number of cases with remarkably similar stories. At the time they just told me they had had no other reports.” When alerted by another body of employers, they claimed this was the first they’d heard of the situation.

The reality is that the Department of Health simply ignored the threat until provoked into a response by the French ban.

PIP implants were eventually made the subject of a Medical Device Alert in March 2010, ordering the recall of all stocks of PIP implant. Yet, despite the danger, just weeks later they were found on the market after the recalled stocks had been bought and re-branded as ‘M-implants’ by Dutch firm Rofil Medical.

When the company was shut down in 2010, the medical authorities announced that women who had received the implants were not at a higher risk of harm from rupturing or related-illness. This is despite the fact that the silicon is been explicitly banned from medical use.

Tests carried out in France uncovered rupture rates of 5% and shortly before Christmas the government agreed to pay for the 30,000 women with PIP implants to have them removed.

Initially, the British government only found 1% rupture rates and refused to take similar action. However, Tory Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has made a partial U-turn, saying individual clinics should offer removal of the implants but the government will not agree to pay.

The government seems to think 1% is an acceptable risk, but thousands of women carrying these toxic time-bombs are sure to disagree. The government should order clinics to remove implants at their own expense and not make the taxpayer or patient in question foot the bill.

The question as to whether any implants are safe is a difficult one as various types have been banned by British regulators over the past. The main concern is if the implants leak, what substance is it made up of and what problems can this cause if it ends up in the body. Saline implants are often thought to be the safest because even if they rupture the contents are simply salt water, but they don’t give the same shape as silicon.

Approximately 25,000 women in the UK have breast implants for cosmetic reasons every year and over 1,000 on the NHS as part of reconstruction surgery following breast cancer.

Cosmetic surgery for women is a fast-growing industry, fuelled by unscrupulous advertising and immense pressure for women to ensure that their bodies conform to society’s standards.

The rise of ‘cosmetic tourism’ where women go abroad for treatment not provided on the NHS shows how many are seeking out the cheapest options. Surgeons aren’t always required to give detailed information about the products they use, a situation which regularly leaves women suffering from unforeseen side-effects or complications.

It seems clinics are happy to make offers giving them a nice profit and go through with the surgery as cheaply as possible, but when it comes to aftercare they don’t want to know and refuse to take responsibility if anything goes wrong.

The PIP drama exposes the iron logic of capitalism – that of profit over people. The financial and social fallout from the faulty implants is far greater than the savings made by the use of sub-standard products, and will be picked up by society as a whole.

The fact that the PIP implants found their way into the NHS shows us that a health service run on the principle of profit is one that works against us.

Without proper control and accountability over commissioning we can be sure that private contractors, the ‘health business’ lobby and the imperative to make a profit will dictate the quality of our healthcare and our access to it.

The current attacks on the NHS aim to open it up to private providers, who will treat is as a business. This means shifting resources from unprofitable areas to profitable ones, and subjecting every bed, treatment and patient to the iron logic of capitalist profit.

A free, universal healthcare system is a towering achievement. Yet like all social gains won by the working class, it us under attack by a minority of exploiters who want to steal its enormous human and financial potential for themselves.

We need to fight to defend the NHS.

This struggle goes hand-in-hand with the struggle to reform it. Not to be ‘more efficient’ but to put it under the control of the working class who are the only class who can run it in the interests of the many not the few.

As this sorry saga drags on, it becomes increasingly clear that when something goes wrong for the capitalists, they will try to offload the cost onto the backs of ordinary people.

We need to keep up the pressure to fight for free removal of the PIP implants, and holding those responsible accountable.

Ultimately though we should take this as another warning. From Bhopal to Fukushima we see that capitalism sacrifices the health and wellbeing of millions in order to guarantee a short-term profit.

These are not the works of ‘rogue operators’, but a crystal expression of how capitalism works in the interests of the few, while destroying the lives of millions.

Only a socialist economy, run by the working-class can end the power of the capitalists over our lives. Join us to fight for a world where people have full control over their bodies and lives; where production and distribution is manged democratically, putting people’s health and needs first.

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