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The House of Commons Health Committee is mulling a national registry for breast implants, years after the Star published an investigative series into the health harms of some of the products.
In a meeting Monday, the committee announced they’ve launched a study into the feasibility and scope of a Canada-wide breast implant registry.
First proposed in February of last year by Luc Theriault, an MP for the Bloc Québécois and vice-chair of the health committee, the change would make it mandatory for doctors who implant, remove or replace breast implants to log certain data in a registry.
Citing health impacts linked to breast implants, including risks of cancer, Theriault said at the time: “Since there’s no registry, the women who are dealing with the problems or who are unaware of any potential problems can’t verify what was implanted in them.”
On Monday, David Boudreau, the head of Health Canada’s medical devices directorate, gave an overview of what this update could look like, saying a registry could “support patient safety notifications, also referred to as track and trace, or have a research purpose, or both.”
Boudreau added that “while registries are often used to support research, it is not a common mechanism to monitor the safety of medical devices.” Canada’s currently only medical device registry monitors joint replacements for medical research, Boudreau continued — a new registry could introduce patient privacy and data sharing concerns.
As the details are still fuzzy, Boudreau doesn’t have a price point for the project — though he anticipates it may be “quite expensive.”
Health Canada has banned some textured breast implants in recent years after a joint investigation by the Toronto Star, CBC News and Radio-Canada revealed numerous safety concerns surrounding the products, linking them to cancer development and other serious health issues.
The 2018 investigations found thousands of Canadians were killed or injured by medical implants since 2008 and that surgeons provided little warning of the procedure’s risks. Meanwhile, manufacturers have avoided reporting health incidents linked to the devices while Canada’s reporting system makes it difficult for individuals to speak out.
Last year, Theriault noted the health issues linked to breast implants often occur decades down the line. He reiterated the point during Monday’s meeting.
“Without a registry, how can we ensure that eight, 10, 15, 25 years later, we can make the connection between the problems — the cancer, the lymphomas — with the implantation that happened 15 years earlier?”
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