Woman Picks Fight Against Breast Implants

They can kill. That’s what Joyce Delp wants women to know about silicone breast implants.

Her crusade is heresy in some circles. The debate still rages over how much danger is packed into those silicone-gel pillows that give women Barbie-doll busts.

But Joyce, who lives just east of Coeur d’Alene, knows what she’s seen: her friend near death with swollen arms and legs and half a memory.

“I saw her crumble, and I won’t let go of this now,” says Joyce, a small, blond woman with a tiger inside her.

Joyce was helping people get satisfaction from insurance companies in 1991 when her husband mentioned how ill his friend’s wife was.

Joyce befriended the woman and was staggered at the years of hurdles she faced in trying to remove her leaking breast implants. Doctors acknowledged her ailments but wouldn’t link them to her implants which, they’d told her from the start, were safe.

Insurance companies were willing to pay tremendous lung-cancer treatment bills for lifelong smokers - people intentionally destroying their health - but balked at paying for implant removals. Implants are elective and cosmetic, they claimed, ignoring the fact that women weren’t told they also were possibly unsafe.

Joyce found insurance companies would rather pay to treat the long-term debilitating illnesses tied to the implants than for their removal.

Emaciated and bedridden, her friend flew home to Texas where doctors she knew removed her implants and started treatments to rebuild her system. Meanwhile, Joyce began devouring information on silicone implants.

She chose to believe the worst because she’d seen it in dozens of women who went for help to the same hospitals as her friend had. Joyce did what she could for these women with her own money, fighting for insurance coverage, sharing information.

Then she found Dr. Graham Woods at a symposium in Boise in 1994. The California doctor confessed to women there that he had implanted silicone, had quit because of the potential danger and now was campaigning for removal of the implants.

Joyce recognized a kindred spirit. She flew to meet Woods two months later with a plan.

The least expensive implant removal and follow-up treatment she’d found cost $18,000 with little or no insurance help. A settlement with the manufacturer, however, reserved $5,000 for each removal.

She wanted a top price of $9,000 for airfare, nice lodging, implant removal, breast reconstruction and follow-up treatment - and she wanted a woman to be able to take a companion along for support for no extra charge.

After tough negotiating, Woods agreed and Joyce turned her efforts to insurance companies unwilling to help women shed their implants.

“If an insurance company doesn’t pay for removal, I eat them for breakfast,” she growls.

Her friend is better now but will need treatment the rest of her life. The husband who had urged her to enlarge her breasts divorced her after she got sick. Joyce spits out the story with disgust.

“I don’t know why women have to change themselves,” she says. “It just isn’t worth it.”

Keep Post-ed

Marianne Love wants her Sandpoint High School journalism students to go to a convention in San Francisco in April. The money, she hopes, will come from sales of SHS’ latest Cedar Post Special Edition, which is full of news of Bonner County people back to the 1920s. Don’t forget to buy one.

What memories do you have of your high school newspaper? Report them to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; or send a fax to 765-7149 or call 765-7128.

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