Bloc Québécois is urging the federal government to create a breast implant registry to protect patients’ rights.

This would follow up on a 2023 recommendation endorsed by all major political parties in Ottawa, said Bloc Québécois health spokesperson, Luc Thériault.

“Health Canada has no excuse,” the Bloc MP said Thursday at a press briefing in Ottawa. He also called for an “urgent” notice to be sent to family doctors “to inform them of the possible links between implants and the symptoms” of what has been called breast implant illness.

“When Health Canada claims that there is not enough data, but at the same time knows there are problems, it must act in accordance with the precautionary principle.”

Thériault was accompanied by former patients who recounted suffering significant side effects from breast implants. One of them, Terri McGregor, said she had survived cancer of the immune system.

“Hundreds of thousands of women around the world suffer from autoimmune symptoms caused by breast implants,” McGregor said. “It’s called breast implant illness. The industry and their plastic surgeons (…) insist that it doesn’t exist, that it’s a psychological problem in women’s heads.”

Physician Isabelle Gaston, who just released a documentary on the risks associated with breast implants, was also present virtually and argued that a registry is “the only way to quickly find out if an implant is problematic, warn patients, recall a defective batch, and identify complications more effectively.”

“Without a registry, each woman lives isolated at their own risk, and each doctor becomes dependent on remembering old files and incomplete information.”

According to a report published two years ago by the House of Commons Health Committee, a registry would make it possible to “inform breast implant recipients and communicate with them in the event of a recall; collect reliable and comprehensive data on the risks and benefits of breast implants; and proactively monitor the long-term safety of these implant devices.”

Medical professors, including one who opened a clinic specializing in breast implants in the Netherlands, also took part in the remote press briefing to support the Bloc’s request.

Several speakers mentioned that Canada is the only G7 country that does not have such a registry.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews