Czech ministry advises French-made breast implant removal

The Czech health ministry said on Friday that up to 2,000 Czech women who received the French-made breast implants which have sparked a global health scare should have them removed.

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The Czech pharmaceuticals market watchdog SUKL said it had registered no
"undesirable events" linked to the French-made Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) brand implants as yet.

Meanwhile, Britain's health minister is to announce a decision on further action regarding potentially faulty breast implants supplied by the now-defunct French company.

Around 42,000 women in Britain are believed to have had PIP implants.

On Thursday, the founder PIP said on Thursday that much of the information emerging in the scandal was untrue but refused further comment.

In a statement, Jean-Claude Mas denied he was in hiding and said he was keeping silent "first out of respect and out of a sense of decency with regard to the concerns of the patients involved, and also due to the existence of ongoing (court) proceedings".

Mas told police in October he knew the silicone used by his firm was "not approved” but said he changed the composition knowingly because PIP gel was cheaper and “as far as the price-performance ratio is concerned it was cheaper and of better quality. "I always knew" that the product was non-standard, he added.

He said that as early as 1993, two years after he created his company, he "gave orders to hide the truth" from German technical inspection board Tuev, years before the suspect implants were marketed.

PIP was shut down and its products banned in 2010 after it was revealed to have been using a silicone gel that caused abnormally high rupture rates.

Meanwhile France's Centres for the Fight Against Cancer (CLCC) said in a statement it had used PIP as a supplier and given its implants to about 3,300 women. It said the women had been contacted and advised to see their doctors about the implants.