Source: The New York Times

By MAÏA DE LA BAUME and DAVID JOLLY

The founder of a French company that made hundreds of thousands of breast implants from industrial-grade silicone, causing anxiety among women around the world, was detained in a dawn raid on his home in southern France, the authorities said Thursday.

The founder, Jean-Claude Mas, could be held for questioning for 48 hours in a manslaughter investigation that began after a woman whose implants ruptured died from a rare form of cancer, according to an official with the Marseille prosecutor’s office said. Mr. Mas’s former deputy, Claude Couty, was also arrested. Mr. Mas’s lawyer was advising him during questioning Thursday morning and could not be reached for comment, his office said.

French prosecutors typically file charges only after an initial informal phase of investigation is completed. Mr. Mas, who is also the subject of additional investigations related to the implants, has not been charged with any crime.

The company Mr. Mas founded, Poly Implants Prothèses, was closed by the authorities in March 2010 and liquidated, following revelations that it had used industrial-grade silicone, not surgical grade, to save money on the hundreds of thousands of implants it sold in countries around the world.

Mr. Mas, already the subject of a separate fraud investigation over the same products, had previously been questioned by prosecutors and acknowledged that he used a cheaper, unapproved product, telling investigators that it was actually of higher quality than the surgical-grade material. But his formal arrest Thursday opened a new, and more serious, phase in an investigation that could take years to complete.

The implants have proved exceptionally vulnerable to ruptures and leaks, allowing the inferior silicone to seep into the body.

Health experts have said the silicone carries no known cancer link, but the alarm of tens of thousands of implant recipients in Brazil, Britain, France, Venezuela and other countries has only deepened as national health officials have issued contradictory advice.

French health officials have recommended that the implants be removed because the gel can irritate body tissues and cause inflammation. German and Czech officials have concurred.

Brazilian authorities recently ordered the country’s public health system and health insurance companies to pay for the replacement of all the ruptured breast implants made in France. Venezuela and Bolivia announced that the P.I.P. implants would also be removed for free, while Argentine authorities said that the implants had been banned since 2010.

About 1,000 women in Argentina and Venezuela who have the implants announced recently that they were taking legal action to get money for replacement surgery.

Meanwhile, health officials are still trying to get a firm grip on the implants’ failure rate.

On Thursday, Laurent Lantieri, a well-known French plastic surgeon, said that he believed the rupture rate was far higher than the 5 percent French authorities have thus far indicated.

“Between 15 and 30 percent of the P.I.P. implants that my colleagues and I removed were ruptured,” Dr. Lantieri said. “We don’t know the nature of the gel and need to remove those implants this year.”

Philippe Courtois, who represents a group of 1300 people with the implants, said of Mr. Mas: “This person is dangerous, and his words were odious. His detention comforted many victims who didn’t want him to be a free agent.”

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