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Class-action victory just first step in breast implant battle
Any compensation could be years away
August 20, 1997
Web posted at: 6:38 a.m. EDT (1038 GMT)From Correspondent Charles Zewe
NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- For Faye Armond, something as simple as shopping for clothes with her granddaughter is a painful chore.
She suffers from high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis and swelling. She blames it all on the silicone breast implants she received in 1970.
"You can't enjoy your grandchildren, because you're always so sore from the surgeries they've done for you," Armond explains.
She's one of 1,800 Louisiana women involved in the class- action lawsuit on breast implants. Like other plaintiffs, Armond claims silicone seeped out through the flexible walls of her implants and triggered several immune system diseases.
But a jury decision Monday that Dow Chemical plotted to hide the dangers of silicone is only the first step for the women who sued the company.
In fact, for the hundreds of women who filed the nation's first class-action case on breast implants, a final ruling could be years away.
Dawn Barrios, an attorney for the plaintiffs, however, thinks the groundwork for a further victory has already been made.
"I think the message is very clear: Do not put a medical product in anyone's body until the entire safety gamut of tests have been run," Barrios says.
In the second phase of the trial, eight of the women who sued will attempt to prove the silicone breast implants actually made them sick.
Claims of responsibility
Dow Chemical says the jury was mislead by emotional claims in the first phase of the trial.
"It's a courtroom claim made only in the courtroom, not made by doctors who are out there treating people, but by doctors whose practices consist of women sent to them by lawyers," says Dow Chemical attorney Lorna Popes.
Dow Chemical contends it never made nor tested silicone for use as an implant.
But plaintiff's lawyers argue Dow Chemical is responsible because of its half ownership of now-bankrupt Dow-Corning, one of the world's biggest implant makers.
Attorneys for breast-implant recipients say court documents indicate Dow-Corning asked its sister company, Dow Chemical, to run tests to determine if implants were indeed toxic.
Legal experts, however, say the women must prove Dow Chemical knew the implants were dangerous and they suffered health consequences before anyone likely collects a dime.
"The jury has to find that the silicone itself did, in fact, cause the problems that these plaintiffs are presented with," says Ken Biermacher, a product liability specialist. "It may not be that Dow Chemical knew it would cause harm to users of the product."
Connie Hebert, who claims she's been sick for 14 years since receiving breast implants and can no longer work, says the verdict sends a powerful message.
"We were lied to when we got the implants," Hebert says. "We were not told that we got a faulty product that made us sick."
The women who filed the suit are vowing to never give up. The company says it won't give in. As a result, legal analysts say, it could be years before any money changes hands, if at all.
Related stories:
- CNNfn - Dow Chemical 'negligent' - August 18, 1997
- Study tracks complications linked to breast implants - Mar. 5, 1997
- Jury awards $3.9 million in breast implant case - Oct. 28, 1995
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