In accordance with a 1995 federal law that requires lobbyists to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches, Mentor has filed disclosure documents with the Senate public records office for 2007. This year, according to today’s Pacific Coast Business Times, the breast-implant maker spent about $180,000 on lobbying, most of it against the FDA Scientific Fairness for Women Act, sponsored by long-time women’s health advocate Rep. Rosa DeLauro [D-CT].

The bill proposes to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to:

§ Elevate the Office of Women’s Health within the FDA so that the office reports directly to the Commissioner, instead of being buried two levels down from the Commissioner;

§ Rescind approval of silicone breast implants until manufacturers can conclusively demonstrate their safety over the life of an implant; and

§ Require FDA to convene a workshop to review and evaluate current scientific data on the use of emergency contraception by young women under the age of 18.

The bill is now in committee and not likely to ever emerge to be debated by the House. Why? Because the voices of women’s health advocates supporting the bill have been completely drowned out by the shower of Mentor’s hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Studies have shown that within the first three years of getting cosmetic breast implants for the first time, almost half of the women experience one local complication such as pain, infection, hardening or the need for additional surgery, and this number soars to about 75 percent among breast cancer patients. (More information here). What would breast implant manufacturers find if they ever cooperated in rigorous studies of implant safety over the lifetime of the device? The size of Mentor’s monetary commitment to fighting the DeLauro bill is very much in direct proportion to how very much it does NOT want to have to prove lifetime implant safety. Mentor knows very well it will never be able to do so, and, I believe, is actually very very afraid of what it would find.

This information is more interesting considering it comes at the time of our first anniversary after the approval of implants. The manufacturers have spent their time and money fighting the women they are supposed to be doing studies on! Shame on Mentor and shame on the FDA if they don’t get the results of the studies that were promised after one year.

Meanwhile, Mentor advertises to a new independent woman but backstabs her at the same time. I hope women wake up to this hypocrisy.