Interpol seek French breast implant boss

An international police hunt has been launched for the boss of a French company whose breast implants are at the centre of a global health scare.

Interpol says Jean-Claude Mas is wanted by Costa Rica for ‘life and health’ offences.

The head of the now defunct firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) has vanished from public view amid warnings that cheap industrial silicone used has an increased risk of rupture.

Claiming Mas is an former butcher, one of France’s top plastic surgeons says doctors were tricked by brochures boasting about the good quality of PIP’s products.

Patrick Baraf asked who could check claims that “such and such a laboratory had done such and such research” and that his implants were “this and that?”

“It is possible to be tricked and in the case of PIP, it was run by a man with a commercial and not a medical background,” Baraf said.

French health officials say there is no evidence the implants pose a cancer risk, as had been feared.

Nonetheless, France’s government has urged some 30,000 women in the country to have them taken out. Britain says the tens of thousands affected there need not resort to routine removal.

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