Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-340"
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"en.20010612.18.2-340"2
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"Mr President, over seven years ago a woman walked into my office in Glasgow. She had been turned away by a wide variety of authorities – elected members and health authorities. Nobody would listen to her. They treated her somewhat as an eccentric. I sat down with her and over a period of about three-and-half hours she convinced me that there was a problem with the whole question of silicone and silicone implants.
The result of that conversation, over seven years ago, is that I am standing here tonight talking about it – not on behalf of Mr Miller, but on behalf of that woman and the hundreds of thousands of other women who have since joined together in a vast network, not just in Europe but throughout the world, to petition against the use of unsafe silicone implants. It is a testament to the citizens of Europe that they can petition this Parliament and actually get heard. This is the first time that I can remember an ordinary citizen raising an issue which has reached the floor of this Parliament. I congratulate Parliament and the Petitions Committee.
As I said, this was not only down to Mr Miller, though I have pursued it through Parliament. This has been down to the women themselves who have bravely fought against scorn and ridicule from a variety of sources and who have continued fighting their campaign against silicone implants. That campaign has continued for years and they are still fighting. Many of them believe that there should be a complete ban. However, most of them recognise that at the moment there is not enough evidence to ban silicone implants so they are happy to settle, at this point in time, for stronger rules and regulations governing this whole question.
Regarding a couple of points in the report, I am glad to see the call for a ban on implants anyone under the age of 18 for cosmetic purposes. When we talk about the quality of the implants we also have to talk about the safety of the implants. I cannot stress that too strongly. We talk about the information to prospective clients undergoing this operation. That information has to be available from independent sources. It is not good enough for that information to come from the surgeon carrying out the operation.
We also talk about registration. We have to know the number of operations taking place. We have to know the clinics that are taking these people in. We have to know what surgeons are carrying them out. Until we do so we will not fully realise the scale of this problem.
This is a tribute to Parliament, but moreover, this is a tribute to the thousands of women who have been fighting for years. It has finally been recognised that there is a problem."@en1
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