News Ireland update as told by Donie

French PIP breast implants: 

review to give findings shortly

BY JAMES GALLAGHER HEALTH CORRESPONDENT OF THE BBC

           

The implants were manufactured by the French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP)

Some 40,000 British women with banned PIP breast implants are expected to learn later whether the government believes they should be removed.

France banned the implants, by the French firm Poly Implant Prothese, in 2010 and said they needed to be taken out due to a high risk of leaking.

They were found to have industrial, rather than medical grade silicone gel.

The UK government has so far said the risk is low but ordered a review because of conflicting data.

The findings of the review into the rupture risk will be released soon.

What rate?

The key question will be the rupture rate of the implants. The French authorities have quoted a rate of 5%. The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said the rate was 1% – in line with other implants.

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, ordered the review amid reports of rupture rates of 7% from one cosmetic surgery group, Transform. However, it says that rate was based on just seven out of 108 patients it fitted with PIP implants since 2005.

What are the risks?

• The silicone inside the implants is not medical grade – but was intended for use in mattresses
• Tests have not shown any increased risk of toxicity from this filler compared with normal implants
• But mechanical testing has shown the implant covers have an increased risk of rupturing
• The gel inside can be irritative, increasing the risk of inflammation reaction – making removal more difficult
• There is no increased breast cancer risk
• One case of a rare form of cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) was recently reported in France
• French and US experts suggest there is a small but increased risk of this cancer in women with breast implants in general

The organisation which represents the majority of UK private breast implant clinics has insisted the rupture rate is not abnormally high.

Sally Taber, director of the Independent Healthcare Advisory Services, said: “Following an audit of our members, which includes data on thousands of patients… we can confirm that the average rupture rates reported for PIP implants are within the industry standard of 1-2%.”

On Tuesday, Mr Lansley said the data from private companies had been “inconsistent” and was sometimes “inadequate” and of “poor quality”.

Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director who is leading the review, said: “I am disappointed at the ability of some private providers to submit accurate and meaningful data. I am pursuing this with vigour.”

They were set a deadline of Thursday to provide the information or they would be named and shamed.

The advice from government officials has consistently been against removing the implants.

The chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, initially said: “We currently have no evidence to make us think they should have the PIP breast implants removed.

Then, three days before the review was due to report, Mr Lansley told the BBC: “The overwhelming evidence continues to support the advice we’ve given women previously.

“It is not advisable for women to routinely have implants removed because the risk associated with an operation of that kind would outweigh the benefit of removing these implants.”

The president of the British Association Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, Fazel Fatah, has argued that all implants should be removed.

He said it would be impossible to find out the exact rupture rates and that the important issue was the quality of the silicone as “it is not fit to be implanted into humans”.

Eircom and ESB crews continue to restore services in Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Donegal

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Eircom and ESB crews have been working tirelessly in order to restore any services which have been affected due to the adverse weather experienced over the past few days.

Eircom said that following stormy weather the areas with the highest fault levels are Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Donegal. Extra staff were deployed in these areas to deal with the outages.

Homes in Mayo were also left without power, however the ESB has been quick to try to deal with these faults.

According to Met Éireann gale force winds will die out by the weekend.

10 new Irish jobs as Roscommon IT services firm goes global

     

Ten new jobs are to be generated as part of a €200,000 international expansion plan by Roscommon communications and IT services firm Flexible Contact Solutions (FCS).

The company, Flexible Contact Solutions (FCS) is an independent company providing consultancy, network design, optimisation, installation and support services to a wide variety of small, medium and large corporate clients.

FCS addresses the issues and challenges of building, operating and supporting client networks by maximising performance and reducing ongoing costs.

FCS is a global company and specialises in the installation and support of multi-national networks.

The company which was established in Ballaghaderreen in Roscommon in 2002, has emerged as one of the fastest growing suppliers of communications solutions and IT services worldwide.

FCS serves 1,000 sites around the world and has engineering staff dotted around the world.

The expansion plan, which was outlined following the completion of a feasibility study by Enterprise Ireland, will see FCS locate new branches in South Africa, Russia, France, Spain and the Netherlands, in addition to existing bases in the UK, Turkey and Romania.

From the current 47 staff, there will be an additional ten more positions filled which includes five management positions in the coming months.

“One of the management positions also includes the imminent appointment of a CEO which will be announced in the next couple of weeks.
The investment in the expansion is approximately €200,000 for the initial phase with a similar figure planned for investment in phase 2.

GLOBAL EXPANSION PLANS

Company founder and managing director, Mike Rowland said: “This expansion is a very significant achievement for a company with our ambitions. When the company was originally founded, the initial focus was as a contact centre consultancy but in recent years, multi platform capabilities were added to enable FCS provide global services for multinational clients.

“2012 represents a very exciting period for FCS which will see a large scale expansion in Ireland and throughout Europe including the UK, Romania and Turkey while we will also open new branches in the all the emerging markets which include Russia, South Africa and in many mainland European countries to meet the demand for our services.

“The initial focus will be in the regions where FCS have already major service contracts and will continue into the Asia Pacific and Latin America regions in the latter half of 2012,” Rowland added