May21, 2021

Andrew Campbell 

A French appeal court made its ruling against TUV Rheinland on May 20 and held it solely responsible for damages from the faulty breast implants made by the French company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP).

The case, known as TUV1, was first filed in 2010 against TUV Rheinland which issued European safety certificates for the PIP implants. Between 2001 and 2010 the substandard implants, filled with cheap, industrial-grade silicone which was hazardous for humans, were manufactured by the French company PIP. Without any knowing the faulty breast implants, the victims are often suffering years of mysterious illnesses, including extreme exhaustion and debilitating pain. Among all the victims, Latin America was the worst hit, in particular, there are about 60,000 victims in Colombia and followed by the UK estimated at 47,000 women.

The founder of the French company PIP that made faulty breast implants, Jean-Claude Mas, was fined 75,000 euros (US$ 82,500) in 2013 and had a four-year jail sentence upheld by a French appeals court in 2016. When the PIP scandal erupted in 2010, Mas confessed that his employees would remove evidence of the industrial silicone gel prior to TUV Rheinland's annual onsite inspection. In April 2019, he died while still under indictment in 2 other proceedings.

For years PIP sold more than one million faulty breast implants in 65 countries around the world. An estimated around 400,000 women were victimized with implants made from mattress-grade silicone. As a result of the French appeal court's May 20's decision, tens of thousands more women from dozens of countries around the world who received PIP implants would have grounds for claiming some compensations.

Photo:webshot.